The Impossible
by uncle-bulgaria
Summary: This is the story that came before and after the animorphs, how the One came to be and how the animorphs cope in this epic struggle for freedom...Please read and review. i need feedeback on my work
1. Prologue: Ellimist

Prologue  
  
3000 years before the invasion of Earth...  
  
My name is Ellimist.  
From his dark lair, the burning red eye that calls itself Crayak watched me. His last move in the game that we both play had been a painfully slow, but good one. The poor race called the Drung Pa had been annihilated by his Howlers. They had just reached sentience, only to be massacred by Crayak's dogs. I knew the future was uncertain. I knew things could not be foreseen as easily as I had assumed long ago. But I felt that this particular move...this particular species Crayak had wiped out would change the force of the Universe. The extinction of the actual species would mean little in the long run but it was the monstrosity that Crayak had created from the Emperor of the Drung Pa that shocked me.  
I had seen the battle as if I was standing right there on the battlefield. On one side stood ten thousand Drung Pa, armed only with clubs and sticks. Across the steaming swamp that occupied most of the planet stood seven Howlers. It would be slaughter. I watched as the Howlers charged, weapons raised. I saw the fletchettes fire and dozens of Drung Pa fell before me. I felt saddened by the destruction of such an innocent race, but I felt it was nesseccary for this race to succumb if one very important race was to survive in the near future. If the Drung Pa had survived, the nearest planet in this particular solar system would have died once the Drung Pa had discovered space-travel. They had to die. But still, watching the Howlers open their mouths and start to emit their brain- shattering cry...well, it didn't seem right.  
The Drung Pa died. And still Crayak wasn't satisfied. I saw him plotting, felt his corrupted mind scheming. I felt a connection grow between Crayak himself and the rotting corpse of the Drung Pa emperor. I felt his evil mind expand down into the planet. I saw the swamp-life die before my eyes. Insects of brilliant density died instantaneously as Crayak's powerful will bored through into the planet. Plants wilted. The few species of mammal that lived on the planet breathed their last before collapsing. I saw Crayak reaching over the emperor and at once, I felt the Drung Pa's brain neurons firing again. There was activity where there should never have been again.  
'That is outside the rule limit, Crayak,' I said calmly.  
'It has been stretched,' Crayak responded with the cold, evil voice that almost froze your organs. 'If I am allowed to do this, you will be allowed to do your thing.'  
I had already seen what must be done. From a distant planet I saw a ship. Recently the Howlers had annihilated the creatures that lived on that planet, but their creations—a species of android survived. I wrapped myself around the fabric of space and time and saw the ship. Inside there were many androids—Chee they called themselves-and a few specimens of their creators. The Pemalites. My own creation. A species I had made entirely by scratch. Crayak would never have bothered with the Pemalites for at least another ten thousand years hadn't he known I had created them. But he had known and that's why they had been annihilated. The last few Pemalites, the final remnants of a spectacular race, would die. But their creations, the Chee would not. Unaffected by the disease that was slowly picking off the Pemalites, I could see the Chee desperately trying to find a suitable planet to live on.  
'Earth.' I spoke to one of them. His android eyes lit up, remembering Earth as the small, lively planet they had visited once before fifty thousand years before. I stepped back, my work here done. It was a small, minor move even but I would work to be advantage. Perhaps nothing would happen for thousands of years, but it would work. Crayak felt it too. I felt the indescribable rage building up inside him. But it quickly subsided.  
'No matter,' he said to me. 'I have what I came here for.'  
I saw the emperor of the Drung Pa stand up, his eyes ablaze. Evil radiated from here, an evil that could almost match the evil of Crayak himself. I knew exactly what it was, I knew what Crayak had created and I knew its purpose, but I asked anyway.  
'What is it?'  
'The One,' was Crayak's reply. 'My Howlers may be my shock troops, but they are, after all, destructible. This new 'creature' is not. It is practically invincible. As long as those eyes shine as they do, its pure evil will surge it forward. It claims souls, not bodies. It can shape- shift, become any creature it takes the soul of. Entire races will fall, the galaxy will bow before myself and The One.'  
'A bit overly-optimistic, aren't you?' I replied, not impressed by Crayak's invention. Nothing was indestructible. Not even I.  
  
Thousands of years passed. My moves were getting stronger, but so were Crayak's...I had concentrated on a species called the Andalites. They were essential for the survival of the galaxy. Crayak had seen this and had tried to stop me claiming the Andalites. He failed. Space-travel was accomplished. They travelled the galaxy, searching for other species...which was when Crayak seized his chance. He had been observing the species—an intelligent but lowly race called Yeerks—for a while and when the Andalites arranged a visit to the Yeerk homeworld, everything fell into Crayak's hands.  
'A species that requires other beings to see, hear and do pretty much anything?' Crayak mused, as we observed the stinking, retching world that was covered by shallow, dark pools—the Yeerk's natural habitat. 'They would give anything to be able to take control over the bodies of other species and roam the stars.'  
'They already have hosts,' I argued. 'Gedds, I believe they are called. They do not need other hosts.'  
'But the Gedds are slow, cumbersome and half-blind,' Crayak said carefully, his blood-red eye locked on the Andalite ship that settled onto the planet's surface. 'If they knew about the Universe and its many other species, they wouldn't make do with the Gedds as hosts.'  
I could not stop Crayak, just slow his progress. And so it was that the Yeerk plague was unleashed onto the galaxy. I could not save the peaceful Hork-Bajir, try as I might, although I wasn't upset too much–the Hork-Bajir would be free one day. That I knew for sure. Next came the Taxxons, a species I was not entirely bothered about. It was around this time that one time-line became much more clearer than every other time-line in the galaxy–an Andalite male, called Elfangor. I realised his potential to stop the Yeerk invasion in its tracks. However, changes had to be made...  
'What are you doing, Ellimist?' Crayak demanded of me.  
'I am placing the Time Matrix so that it can be recovered,' I answered calmly. I buried it on the planet where I had sent the Chee to—Earth. My plan worked accordingly. A species called the Skrit Na located it and shipped it off. But it was on this particular Skrit Na ship that I arranged for two creatures of the same species to be placed. They were called humans, creatures of earth. Both of these particular humans would go on to be important in the future, I felt.  
The Time Matrix was located and found, although not before Crayak had his say and played the game so that an Andalite war-prince would be taken by a Yeerk. An abomination, a foul disgusting creature that never would have happened had I rethought my plan. And it was that Visser Thirty-two had story in the plot. A world was created; a mixture of the Andalite homeworld, the Yeerk homeworld and Earth...and it was here that I tightened the bond between Elfangor and the human female. What happened next was not according to plan, however. Elfangor permanently morphed into a human and went to live with the girl on Earth. The other mistake was that the other human was left to die, something that was impossible.  
I bent the rules ever so slightly but only if Crayak could. I rescued the human from certain death and returned him home, his mind erased. I also returned Elfangor from his human form back to his true Andalite body, the one he would need in many years to come. I returned him to the Andalite- Yeerk fight. But Crayak would not be silenced. As it turned out, he infected another mind, the Yeerk that was to become the infamous Visser One. He infection caused her to relentlessly search for Earth and when she found it, would slowly infiltrate and take over the planet. This was something I could not allow.  
I protected Elfangor for a while, preventing him from dying, but at last I had to let go in order to guard six new beings. Earth had to be saved. I arranged for four humans and an Andalite to join forces on earth and fight the Yeerks. Searching I found Visser One's host body's son, Elfangor's son (whom he had had with the human female), Elfangor's Andalite brother, and an anomaly. This person would prevent the timeline that Crayak would try to bend from being damaged. I needed one last person to join these people together and so the leader of the 'Animorphs' as they were so called was born. The last human was an accident for me, but not for Crayak. He had sensed her unstable mind and arranged for her to join the 'Animorphs'.  
But the presence of The One could not be forgotten. He waited, biding his time for there would be one day when The One, the Yeerks and the 'Animorphs' would all meet...I had to be there. 


	2. Jake

Chapter 1  
  
My name is Jake. A few years ago I wouldn't have told you my last name, where I live or even what state I lived in. But a lot can happen in a couple of years. Now practically everyone of the planet knew my last name and where I live. The war between the Yeerks and the humans had ended. We had won. And yet I was still unhappy. You see, victory usually comes with a heavy price.  
On The Rachel, the ship on which I have lived the last few months on, I slept. But once again, my dreams were haunted by the dying souls of the people who died in the war. Souls I could not simply erase. These were souls that stuck with you, souls that were implanted on my brain cells.  
I was running across a field. I knew people where chasing me, but for once, they didn't have slugs in their head. They seemed normal almost. Except the people running after me where people that no longer existed in the real world.  
'Jake!' the voices shouted. 'Jake, stop! Listen to us Jake!'  
I clamped a hand over my ears. I didn't need to hear this. I had heard it many times before, not just from other people, but from myself too.  
'Jake, why won't you stop and listen?' the voices wailed. 'Save us, Jake! Why didn't you save us in the end? Why?!'  
The field abruptly ended. The grass simply ended onto an empty white void and I could go no further. I turned to face my pursuers, tired and bleary-eyed.  
Rachel. My beautiful cousin. She had died carrying out orders I had given her.  
Tom. My brother. The one I had told Rachel to destroy, but instead, they both ended up getting killed.  
The Auxiliary Animorphs. James and his gang. All slaughtered by the Blade Ship's Dracon beams. I could have helped...but I sat there in fly morph, watching them die one by one.  
Seventeen thousand defenceless Yeerks. They had been flushed from the ship under my orders. A totally unnecessary 'distraction'.  
'Jake!' they cried together. 'Jake...'  
'It was war!' I argued. 'We had to win!'  
'Did Tom have to die for us to win the war?' Rachel asked, stepping forward. 'Did he? Did I have to die killing Tom? A pointless instruction that resulted in the death of two of your closest family? Is that what it was Jake?'  
'No, it wasn't like that...'  
'What was it like, Jake?' James asked, sneering slightly. 'You watched me and the others slowly die, didn't you? What was it like? Did you get a rush from it?'  
I clutched my hair and began scraping my scalp until I could feel blood on my fingers. Why wouldn't they leave me alone? Why? I wasn't my fault. If the Yeerks hadn't invaded earth in the first place...  
'I tried to save you,' I said meekly. 'I really did...'  
'No you didn't!' Rachel accused. 'You didn't care! You killed me. You killed Tom. You killed us all, without a thought of pity!'  
'NO!!!!!'  
I sat bolt upright on the cold metal floor of the spaceship my friends and I now occupied. Sweat clung profusely to my clothes. Panting, I stood up. I could see the outline of Menderash still working feverishly at the controls. How did it end up like this? How?  
I could still remember that fateful day when the five of us had foolishly decided to take a shortcut through an abandoned construction site. There was me of course, Jake Berenson. Then there was my best friend, Marco. He was the class clown, a real joker if ever there was one, but his entire personality was not based around humour. That guy had—and still has—a very alert mind, perhaps a ruthless mind that could see the shortest line between point A and point B without letting morals obstruct him. He wasn't cruel—he just knew how to get things done quicker.  
Then there was Rachel, my beautiful cousin. A gymnast wannabe. People could call her a dumb airhead model, but most people who did found themselves with their hair in her grasp and her whispering threats down your ear. She was the true warrior of the group, the always-up-for-it person. But it was that strange, out-of-control violence that eventually led to her downfall on the Blade Ship.  
Rachel's best friend was Cassie. Cassie was...how can I explain her...the group pacifist. She was the total opposite of Rachel—they liked different style of clothing, Cassie dressed casually, Rachel dressed wonderfully for every occasion, but it was perhaps the reality of war that brought out the real differences. You see, Rachel seemed to love the war: she loved the adrenaline that cursed through her body before battle and the powerful surge of her strongest morph, the grizzly bear. But Cassie hated the war. She wished it was over from the beginning and although she joined in and was probably the bravest of the lot, she had her line, a line she would not cross even for the good of the planet. She was smart, much like Marco, but unlike Marco, her path between A and B twisted and turned to avoid the morals of life.  
The other member of the original group was Tobias. None of us really knew him back then, but it was soon apparent that a strong connection began to grow between Rachel and Tobias—almost a romantic connection. But Tobias' tragedy changed everything. He became trapped in the morph of a red-tailed hawk and there he stayed for a while until the 'non-interfering' Ellimist allowed him the power to morph again, but he had never regained his true body. His life seemed strange...a boy living the life of a hawk. He was some weird mixture—hawk, boy, and for some strange reason, Andalite. I often look back on him, wondering how strange and isolated his life must have been. But he coped with it, certainly better than anyone else would have dealt with it. War changes you. At the start, I'd have thought Tobias would have been the weakest of us...but incidentally, he turned out to be the strongest.  
Our last member arrived later. He was an Andalite, Elfangor's brother and strange as it seems, Tobias' uncle. He hand Tobias formed a special bond. They were, after all, two lonely freaks, millions of miles away from their true home. Who knew what they both were thinking. But Aximili- Esgarrouth-Isthil (or Ax for short) came through for us and helped us in countless battles.  
Perhaps it was my fault we took that route through the construction site...or perhaps it was the subhuman creature that called itself the Ellimist's fault. I don't know, nor do I care anymore for what happened then happened and changed our lives beyond belief. An Andalite ship containing the dying prince Elfangor crashed landed almost coincidentally in our very spot. It was there that Elfangor told us about the terror that was the Yeerk Empire. He warned us about the invasion. But, without his other form of help, we wouldn't have stood a chance. He gave us the power to morph, to transform into animals.  
That night changed everything. We very quickly got an insight into the Yeerk war. We started off almost amateur, but we quickly grasped the idea of guerrilla warfare. We attacked the Yeerk pool, we destroyed the ground- based Kandrona, we found out that Marco's supposedly 'dead' mum was in fact Visser One, we discovered the Chee, we saved Leera from the Yeerks, we defeated the traitor David, we saved the Iskoort from the scheming mind of Crayak and destroyed his infamous Howlers...We did more that humanly possible in a war against mind-controlling aliens, and yet we did it. In the end, after three years of fighting, we won. We destroyed the Yeerk Pool, we recruited new Animorphs, we captured the Yeerk Pool and saved Earth. We even rescued Alloran-Semitur-Corass from the filthy slug Visser Three (later Visser One). But we lost a lot of things too...  
Most of our town was destroyed in the destruction of the Yeerk Pool. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people died. Then there were General Doubleday's men, the seventeen thousand defenceless Yeerks, the auxiliary Animorphs. Tom. Rachel. Probably more. War was like a wet slap across the face. It stung. We, of all people alive, should know.  
My hair ruffled, I stood up. Marco and Menderash were at the controls. Menderash was an Andalite who had allowed himself become trapped in human morph for the mission. Mission? I hear you say. I thought you said the war was over? Why are you still doing missions?  
Well, the Yeerks weren't entirely defeated. Although the Empire was fragmented, small remnants still scoured the galaxy, hoping to start anew. Ax, our dear friend, had been captured trying to irradiate the last few Yeerk survivors. Word had got to Earth and the Animorphs sprang into action again, or at least most of us did...Rachel wasn't around to help us, although she certainly would have done had she still been alive. Tobias agreed, but only because Ax was his shorm, his true friend. Marco agreed simply because he was bored. He would regret it later, I knew, and start complaining. Cassie, however, would not be joining. She had wanted to, but I didn't allow it. She was the one true survivor of the war. Sure, Marco, Tobias, Ax and I also survived, but only Cassie flourished. I had been so weighed down with the guilt and the pain that at one point I didn't even know what was going on around me. Tobias was so saddened by the experience of losing Rachel, he became a hollow of his real self and disappeared for two years. Marco seemed to be fine and happy and so on but I know him. He wasn't as happy as he should have been considering he had a massive mansion, a TV show, a great girlfriend. But Cassie...she set up a nature reserve for the Hork-Bajir in Yellowstone, she had a boyfriend named Ronnie Chambers or something. She was ecstatic when the war ended, a lot happier than the rest of us. I didn't want her to come with us. It was a dangerous mission. We could all die. Cassie had it all...she couldn't die. Not now. After three years of continuous war.  
So, with the three of us, I recruited three more members. Menderash- Postill-Fastill was the only survivor of the ship Intrepid, which had been the ship Ax had been on. It had been captured and all the Andalites on board captured or killed. Except Menderash. He was the one who came to earth to tell us. Aximili had been his prince, and armed with the knowledge that Ax might still be alive, wanted to rescue him. However, due to some rule that said Andalites could not cross the border into 'Kelbrid' space without causing an intergalactic war, Menderash was forced to permanently morph into a human.  
The other two volunteers: US army ranger Sergeant Santorelli and Jeanne Gerard. Both had barely any family—the reason I chose them. It was likely that no one would return from this trip.  
Well, anyway, there we there, the six of us, setting out on a suicidal mission. We had spent half a year on The Rachel. I was bored. I wanted something to happen. I wanted us to find the Blade Ship. If we found the Blade Ship, we would find Ax.  
Seeing Marco take over the ship's computer to play a game he probably brought along for the ride, I headed for the toilet. I saw Santorelli and Jeanne sleeping in one corner of the room. Tobias sat perched of a pole Menderash had rigged up so he wouldn't have to sleep on the floor. I felt a pang of grief. Only half of the original Animorphs were here—the rest were dead, feared dead or sleeping peacefully on earth. The good old times when we were together and we raided know Yeerk facilities were over—the real war had begun, the Animorphs had split up and I'd recruited new members—members that couldn't even morph. Perhaps I'd made the wrong decision. Perhaps Marco, Tobias, Menderash and I would have been enough. There was no need for Jeanne and Santorelli to join us...but there was a feeling. Six was the best number. It had worked before, why wouldn't it work again.  
But that six was reduced to five, Big Jake, I reminded myself. Would one of us perish like Rachel did/ Marco? Tobias? Menderash? Santorelli or Jeanne? Or even myself?  
I'd just done my business on a toilet designed for Hork-Bajir when I heard a voice call out, 'Captain, to the bridge!' It was Menderash.  
I rushed over to him. I saw him and Marco studying something on a computer screen. I saw a red dot. 'What is it?' I asked. 


	3. Essak 143

Chapter 2  
  
My name is Essak 143. I inhabited a human host body. Her name was Alison Kamitrov. Like I cared. I heard her scream inside my head everyday, trying to fight her way out, shrieking wildly. She had learned long ago that there was no escape from the mighty Yeerk Empire. She knew no host body ever managed to escape while the Yeerk itself was still inside her head. That didn't stop her trying. She was a fool, as were the entire race of humans. One day they would all be conquered. It just happened that this wasn't the time.  
I had been aboard the Blade ship when I saw the Yeerk Empire collapsed before my eyes. I had seen the futile attempts of the foolish, morph- capable girl as she tried to kill the human host Tom Berenson, brother of the Animorph leader. I had been there, in my lioness morph, when that happened. She fought bravely but stupidly. She died. And yet, on that day, so did the Empire.  
I was a wise Yeerk. I had been there when the first rebellion on the homeworld had started. I was there, inhabiting a Gedd host body at the time, of course, when we stole four fighters and two transporters and escaped into Z-Space, just ahead of the Andalite fleet. I had been there when the infamous Esplin 9466, had been 'born' on my very ship. I had been there on the first attack of the Hork-Bajir homeworld. I had been there when the Taxxons gave themselves up to the Yeerks. I had been there when the first two humans appeared on the Taxxon world.  
I had seen many things. But it was the defeat of the Empire that shocked me the most. Months before, the Empire was at its peak. Millions of host bodies were scattered around the galaxy, concentrating on earth, Anati and the Nine-shifter sector. But then it shuddered...and fell apart in one mighty blow. Earth had been defended by the humans, we were driven from the Anati-world and we slowly lost ground in the Rakkam Garroo conflict. Millions of host bodies...bumped down to a mere six thousand in less than a week. It was impossible to comprehend. The Yeerk homeworld was fiercely defended. No Yeerk ships would be leaving the homeworld for a long time. That left one and a half thousand Yeerk host bodies roaming the galaxy, perhaps two thousand more in portable Yeerk pools aboard the few remaining ships.  
After the Empire's defeat, the Blade Ship containing less than twenty host bodies and five hundred Yeerks in the ship's pool, escaped earth before the Andalite fleet swarmed the planet and rounded up all remaining Yeerks. We were told via thought-speech communication from the Council of Thirteen that the homeworld was being held prisoner by the Andalite high command. We were also told to find the remnants of Yeerks that still survived in the galaxy and start infiltrating new, vulnerable species ready to start anew...not an easy task with less than two dozen host bodies and a single ship. But we would, undoubtedly, despite the odds, try. A race was picked out for us: the Renola, a largely unknown species, capable of simple space-flight, but with no real weapons beyond clubs and spears. Infestation would be easy apparently. The race would be ours within a year, statistics showed.  
But The One had different ideas. He wasn't interested in the Yeerks in general. He was 'told' by a higher power to help us along in rebuilding the mighty Yeerk Empire. He obeyed. Still, the Renola were not on the top of his lists—he wanted bigger, better prey and no one was going to argue with the creature that could erase you simply by touching your skin.  
We had found The One lurking in a massive, star-shaped ship. It was massive, matching in size the powerful mother ship that still lurked, biding its time near the planet on the edge of the same solar system as earth. Thinking it an enemy, we had attacked, damaging one of its engines. It was not a recognisable type of ship. Nothing like that had ever been seen in this part of the galaxy. In fact, the unknown ion metals the engines were made up of suggested that the ship wasn't originated from this galaxy.  
The ship appeared empty. It showed no life forms, but then again, The One does not give off DNA readings. After all, it is not an actual creature, just a collection of minds, memories and souls merged into one psychical creature that could 'morph', within reason, into any creature it had captured the soul of. We boarded the ship, as planned, and there The One greeted us, telling us of its 'magnificent' plans to boost the Yeerk Empire. We were, of course, intrigued. Perhaps we should have realised The One's immense powers right then and right there and suddenly left. After all, a being of such capability cannot be a leader, just a bully. We soon found out about what The One really was later on when some underling, Vessek 1254 annoyed him for some reason. The One touched Vessek's Hork- Bajir body, killing him instantly. We saw his lifeless body topple, but we saw, just as well, that the dead creature had no soul. It had been removed by The One upon contact. It was then too late to escape. The One had unbeleivable psychic powers, able to see anything that happened on the ship, even when we left the ship to make planetary excursions looking for suitable host species.  
The terror was unbeatable. Under Visser Three's command (which I remembered from long ago), you were able to make mistakes as long as the Visser didn't know. But under The One's command, every mistake made was seen by The One as clearly as if he/she/it (who knew) were in the room. No move could be made without The One seeing it and reprimanding it. I remained unaffected, however. The One's power was great, I understood that, but The One himself was not to be feared. He seemed unbeatable, but then again, nothing was invincible. After all, the Empire had seemed unbeatable...and look where it was now...  
The One usually remained in his massive quarters, contacting the 'higher-powers'. After these sessions, he would emerge in a flurry, giving us new destinations. We had never reached the Renola planet: instead The One gave us orders to change directions and head for a lonely old planet at the corner of the galaxy, a planet home to the Norshk. We had never heard of them until now, but, according to The One, they were a powerful race of nomads that could be rounded up, one by one until the species was ours. Who were we to argue? I might not fear The One, but I wasn't about to die just because I didn't disagree with his views. That was the job of some incompetent fools.  
We were nearing the solar system where the Norshk planet existed when something happened. I wasn't told, nor was I allowed on the bridge yet. I was just given orders to summon The One. Well, actually no ones summons The One. Its more of a 'Ah, excuse me for interrupting your most excellent session with the 'higher-powers', b-but, if its n-not to much trouble, the ship's c-c-captain would like to see you on the b-bridge with...ah...a p- problem.'  
It was silly, but nesseccary. I saw one Yeerk who just walked in on The One's session, burned slowly alive and have the Yeerk itself pulled from its host body and cut up. The most horrid punishment for a Yeerk besides Kandrona starvation.  
Anyway, I approached The One's quarters slowly, filled with apprehension. I knocked three times on his door, paused for a few seconds then knocked again. This was supposedly time for The One to sever the connection between him and the 'higher-power'. Nonsense, if you asked me. There was another pause then the door opened by itself. I looked inside, spotting The One straight away. Fairly recently, he had stolen the soul of an Andalite prince, but somehow, the process had gone wrong. It seemed the prince was more human than Andalite, the soul-snatching resulted in a misshapen body, half-human, half-Andalite, half-unnamed, foul creature. The One looked like an Andalite, but there were human characteristics. For one, he had a mouth, for another, he only had five fingers on each hand, not seven. He looked up I entered.  
'My master,' I said. Normally, the other Yeerks would bow at this moment. I did not. I did not respect The One anymore than Visser Three. Both were fools, trying to be more powerful than they really were.  
'You have news for me?' he asked. A simple game, really. He knew what I had come here for, he was just playing along.  
'You are requested on the bridge,' I said simply. I did not say 'sir', 'your highness' or even 'almighty one'. He noted this and shifted his stand, raising his tail blade slightly. I said nothing. I didn't play 'suck- up' like the other fools. I hoped The One realised that. He might know everything that happened on 'his' ship, but he could not read minds. And that was my key.  
The One looked at me slowly, and paused. It wasn't a nice pause. He looked at me with the look that read 'I own you, so don't try anything stupid, you half-wit'. 'Acknowledged,' he said finally. 'Return to the bridge. I'll be along shortly.'  
'Yes...master,' I half-sneered, giving a courteous. Not a 'oh, gracious one, I'm glad to have helped' bow, just a small bow to stop myself from getting killed. But even as I bowed, facing the floor, my lips twisted into a sneer. He hadn't a clue about the plans I had for that monstrosity. But he would soon...oh, he would know and by then it would be too late.  
I exited the room. There, standing outside, was a brother of mine Iniss 4943, inhabiting one of the few Hork-Bajir bodies still in the Yeerk empire. Cradling a Dracon beam, he spotted my departure and fell into step with me. I barely glanced towards him. We only spoke about military matters. After all, brothers and sisters are no closer to each other than total strangers. But still, I was jealous. While Iniss was still flaunting a much-wanted host body, myself and most other Yeerks on the ship inhabited weak, pathetic humans and some of us, Taxxons. Still, I didn't want Iniss to think I was jealous.  
'What's going on at the bridge?' Iniss asked. He spoke Galard, the universal language. I didn't need to. Hork-Bajir easily understood human language, apart from the complicated words. 'They won't let me anywhere near it.'  
'I don't know,' I replied gruffly. 'We'd better go and see.'  
The bridge was now clear and people were running in and out of the room in a complete hurry. I entered cautiously, spotting no immediate cause for concern. Until I noticed the huge screen that had been lowered from the ceiling of the room. I glanced between rows of controls and consoles—with a few Taxxons ambling around, looking at strange symbols I even now have difficulty understanding, and twisted knobs that no doubt did something, but not something I could see. As you can probably guess, I was no pilot.  
On the screen a list of words were being created. Confused, I glanced at one of the radar scattered around the bridge. I saw a small red dot (that represented us) and, not far away, perhaps thirty kilometres, was another dot, this time orange. It was most definitely a ship, a Yeerk ship of unknown origin. That explained the excitement. The meeting of ships nowadays was rare. Most ships had been sent out to the Renola planet. Obviously this one had lost its way or something. Glancing at the string of words on the screen, it became apparent that (according to them) the ship they were on was called the Enterprise, a deep-space ship from the Federation of Planets. I stifled a laugh. My host was no expert of human entertainment, but even she knew a little about Star Trek.  
The controller taking command of communication was no other than Efflit 1318. Not a rival by all means, but also not a friend. We could both see this was a set-up. Either a joke or a poorly set-up trap. Maybe both. Moving closer, I heard Efflit send a request for a visual, two-way communication. So, Efflit had learned a few things from childhood. He had been born aboard the Pool ship twenty years ago. I was there when he had taken his first host, a Hork-Bajir and when he had paraded up and down the room, showing off to me, who occupied a lowly, but important Taxxon-pilot, at the time. He'd been strong-minded and powerful, rising up the ranks to Sub-visser One Hundred and Sixty-two. But he was naïve. He failed to notice a trap when he saw one. He'd been second in charge of the invasion of the free Hork-Bajir valley back on earth. He had failed to notice (but, then again, neither had the visser) that not only were the Hork-Bajir in the trees, waiting for them, but also that the Animorphs were there, ready to attack. Visser Three, Efflit and a few others escaped but most perished when the valley flooded. He was demoted after that and his Hork-Bajir body given away to Sub-visser forty-one. I had laughed about that for days. It served him right. He shouldn't have rushed into things. He should have researched the layout of the land. He should have noticed that the Animorphs and the free Hork-Bajir would be waiting in ambush for them. But he didn't...  
Seconds later, a human face appeared on screen. He was quite young, in his early-twenties. Efflit began laughing as the face appeared. 'So, you come from the Federation, do you? And where is Captain Picard?'  
The man looked confused...no, panicked even for a few seconds. I saw his eyes dart off screen, but were quickly reverted. 'I've always thought of myself as more of a Captain Kirk,' the man said, full of arrogance. I almost smiled. He was good, oh he was good all right. Even my host body seemed slightly amused.  
I saw Efflit nod, defeated. He changed the subject. 'That's quite a ship you have there...excuse me, I don't know your name.'  
The 'captain' of the other ship again looked off to one side but only for a split second. 'I am Rakich 4691 of the Flet Niaar Pool.' However, it was done with hesitation, as if the man were being fed his lines. Not something that usually happens to a captain. It clicked.  
I went over to Iniss. 'You realise what's going on here, don't you?' I said. 'That's a decoy, not the real captain. Notice the way he paused, as if waiting for his lines to be said by someone else on board the ship. That means he's not the real captain. And that also means they don't want the real captain to be shown,' I mused.  
I turned back to the conversation between Rakich and Efflit. 'I might ask the same of you,' the other man was saying sharply. 'I find it hard to imagine what business a ship of the Yeerk Empire has in this far-flung quadrant.'  
I saw Efflit's eyes glance towards the Taxxon at weapons. It was the 'turn-the-weapon-on-but-don't-fire-yet' look. The beams were suddenly loaded into the engines, then cross-switched into the emergency engines to stop the real engines overheating and exploding. Efflit turned back to Rakich. 'My business here is classified,' he said simply, his eyes narrowed slightly.  
Rakich nodded, almost sceptically as if he knew Efflit wasn't telling the entire truth. 'As is mine,' he said.  
For a few long moment, the two ships circled each other, both with powered weapons, like two wolves from different packs spotting a dead turkey for the same time. They would circle the bird, their eyes locked on the other wolf, not wanting to fight unless absolutely nesseccary. This was almost the same situation. Neither believed the other story and were ready to fight, but only if the opposite ship fired first.  
I tensed. The Blade Ship had weapons far superior to the other ship. Which was faster was still unknown but I was positive that if the ship attempted to run away, it would be Draconed before it got anywhere, I was sure of that. Still, I was apprehensive. If the cruiser ship fired at the bridge, we'd all die. No question asked.  
Rakich broke the awkward silence that was causing controllers on the bridge of the Blade Ship to shift nervously. 'It occurs to me, Efflit 1318, that it would be a tragedy if any misunderstanding occurred here between us.'  
'Indeed?' Efflit replied. 'And what misunderstanding could occur, Rakich 4691?'  
Rakich sighed. He was playing a part of a deflated soldier, acting as if he were saddened. I could tell. 'There is no empire, Efflit 1318. The empire is finished. I...my crew and I seized this ship and escaped as the Andalites closed in. we had heard that a Blade ship had escaped and survived. We have been looking for you ever since. For more than three years.'  
I almost bought it. Efflit obviously did. He took in every piece of information people fed him and believed it. A common fool. Still, he was smart enough to turn this 'Rakich' over to the professionals.  
'You will place yourself under the command of The One,' Efflit explained.  
The 'captain' of the ship looked genuinely surprised. We had, at last, caught him off guard. I saw his eyebrows rise. 'The who?'  
'I command this ship,' Efflit explained calmly, 'but I serve at the pleasure of The One Who Is Many. The One Who Is All. We are not alone, Rakich 4691. We are not this ship alone. We are the seeds of a new empire that will far outshine the old, under the leadership of The One.'  
I sighed. The foolishness shined out of him. There he was, going on about The One again as if he adored him. I knew for a fact that everyone on this ship (with the exception of me, perhaps) feared him beyond belief. Any ideas that Efflit and The One were best buddies should be eradicated. And for seconds, he was overly opptimistic. I severely doubted that Efflit's dreams of a new, better Empire would ever come true within his lifetime.  
'Um....who is this...this One?' the other guy said.  
'I will invoke his presence,' Efflit said, closing his eyes. I knew he was calling out to The One. He already knew of course, all about the other ship, who was aboard it and on what mission they were on. The One had his uses. Suddenly, the entire bridge began to glow in a brilliant light, the kind of light that has such intensity it shows the insides of things as well as the outside. I closed my host eyes. I didn't want my eyeballs burning away. This was, of course, the arrival of The One.  
He appeared from the light itself, his face shifting from the many souls he had acquired over the milenia. 'Demonstrating his unbeleivable powers' the others said. I thought it was showing off. He stepped daintily out of the light, his Andalite hooves stepping onto the ship's bridge. I saw him grinning, revealing his gruesome, red-rimmed teeth. I could see the evil radiating from him, an unmatched evil. Visser Three seemed tame to this foul, inhuman beast. Evil shimmered from Visser Three, but with The One, you could almost see the black waves of evil rising from The One's Andalite head. Cold eyes that could have frozen your spine locked onto the guy on the other ship and I knew he'd figured it out.  
'Save your tricks for this Yeerk fool,' The One said expertly. 'I see the truth. I see all. Step into view, Jake the Yeerk-Killer. I know you are there. I feel your mind.'  
Jake? Jake Berenson? Leader of the Animorphs? The Animorphs that had caused us to lose the battle for Earth? The very same Jake? It seemed impossible. Why would that foul, Yeerk-destroying being be this far in space. And then it hit me. I visibly rocked. The Andalite that The One had taken? No wonder he had looked familiar. It had been no other than Aximili- Esgarrouth-Isthil, Andalite pet to the Animorphs of earth. So? They were hoping to rescue them, were they? Fat chance of that!  
I saw a young man, only seventeen of age, step calmly into view. I saw every eye in the room narrow. Everybody here knew Jake's face. Some had fought him on Earth. All had been warned about him. He was the 'Most- Wanted' on the Yeerk list for at least three years. My fists clenched automatically. So, Jake Berenson, leader of the human Animorphs of Earth was here in this quadrant of space? He would never live to see Earth again, I would make sure of that. He had caused the Empire too much trouble for him to go on living.  
'I'm here,' Jake said without a trace of fear in his voice.  
'You have done well to come this far,' The One said. 'You have come to find your friend. But the Andalite is part of me now. As you will soon be.'  
Who would I stick up for in a fight? I despised both The One and Jake Berenson. But who would I want to die first...?  
'Can we shoot?' Jake asked somebody beyond my range of vision. He made no attempt to conceal these words. He either wanted The One to think they were beaten. I knew for a fact that the Animorphs wouldn't give up without a fight.  
'His Dracon cannon have longer range and greater power,' the man who had called himself Rakich 4691 said. 'And his defensive fields have been enhanced. I doubt our canon can penetrate them.'  
It was obvious that this man was no ordinary human. No human would talk about Dracon canon and shields like that...no humans knew to any extent about that kind of thing. An Andalite in morph?  
'Thought so,' Jake said. He still seemed unnaturally calm considering he was seriously beaten. 'But we're faster.'  
'Yes,' the man replied.  
'Ok.' I saw Jake glance around the bridge at people I could not see. Undoubtedly, some of the other Animorphs were also there. My guess turned out correct when he next said, 'What was it, Marco? 'Crazy, reckless, ruthless decisions'?'  
I saw his eyes. I saw his smile. None were comforting. I could see that cruel, battle-driven smile as it spread across his face. He was a mouse trapped by an owl. But the mouse always fought back, even though it knew it had no chance of escape.  
'No,' I whispered.  
'Full emergency power to the engines,' Jake said. 'Ram the Blade Ship.' 


	4. Marco

Chapter 3  
  
My name is Marco.  
I don't like hearing the end of my life in a single, given order—'Ram the Blade ship!', because that order would certainly end my life, but also Jake's life, Tobias' life and yes, even the three other recruitment's life. They had not yet experienced war and already it was over. We have fought this war for at least three years and in those three years I've seen things that can give nightmares to every person in the world for a week. I've seen Hork-Bajir so close I could hear them breathing and actually smell them. I've seen not only Visser Three's Andalite body (which is terrifying enough) but also many of his monstrous morphs. I've seen the monstrous, red- eyed being called Crayak. I've seen the harsh reality of war. Compared to all that, the end of my life seemed tame, but that didn't stop the utter terror creeping in.  
I saw Menderash feverishly working. He was, after all, an Andalites, and Andalites don't stop to think to die for the people's freedom. The rest of us, however, were entirely human and the thought of dying in one last, futile attempt to destroy the Blade Ship...well, it wasn't inviting, I can say that.  
I saw Jake, eyes narrowed, focused on the creature that called itself The One. I have been Jake'' best friend for years. I can read him as easily as I can read a book. There was no fear in his eyes, but that did not portray the real Jake. Deep inside, he was as scared as I was. After all, who actually wants to die. Jake may have been putting up the 'fearless- leader' act, but I knew. I could sense his hesitation, his guilt, his grief. He would turn his decision over and over in his mind, trying to think if he'd done the right, condemning us to die for absolutely nothing. But I trusted Jake. I was willing to die if he thought it was for the best.  
I saw Tobias, his fierce yellow eyes locked on Jake, his hawk eyes expressionless...no, that isn't true. A hawk's face can never be expressionless. It is also fierce, glaring at you in a way that no human can. But I've also known Tobias for quite a while. Behind those blazing, yellow eyes was one of the kindest people I've ever met. I knew he, out of all of us, would want to die. He had lost Rachel and never had (and never would, I suspected) got over her death. Perhaps this was the quickest way to see her again.  
I saw Santorelli and Jeanne looking around in confusion. They didn't quite know what was happening. They hadn't quite grasped that Jake had killed us. Hadn't quite figured out that they were living their last few moments. But I saw the realisation in Santorelli's eyes. He glanced around, as if about to protest, but stayed silent.  
I stared stonily ahead. Saw Menderash press maximum burn. Maximum burn. You know how fast that is? Well, we went from standing still to nearly a tenth the speed of light almost instantly, which left us zero time to think about what was happening.  
You've seen daredevils, right? You've seen them risk their life just to prove that they can survive jumping over a waterfall or wrestling with a tiger. Now, I'm not calling them dumb or anything, but they lived for the thrill, the exhilaration, the adrenaline pumping sheer excitement of it. Now, maybe that was Rachel, I don't know. Maybe she'd have liked to have died going thousands of kilometres an hour at a ship that just wasn't going to move. I really don't know 'cause I for one, would rather have died when I was old in my sleep.  
'We will hit the Blade Ship in three,' Menderash explained calmly as the Blade Ship loomed ever closer. 'One...two...'  
I felt like hitting Menderash. Nobody needs to hear beforehand the exact time that you're going to die. Certainly not me, anyway...  
'Three...'  
I saw my life. My life from when I was young flew by like a bullet. I saw glimpses of Jake and I in nursery, I managed to see my mum kissing me goodnight...but then it stopped and began to go slower when we reached that fateful night when we walked through that construction site. I saw when I had first morphed—it was a gorilla. I could still feel the unmatched power as I morphed as my muscles expanded beneath my skin. I saw when I'd found out that my mother was actually Visser One. I saw when I'd pretended to be a controller to talk to my mum in the underwater facility. I saw David, the trechorous, worm called David who had nearly turned us in. I saw, in detail, my mother falling down a cliff face where we had met. I saw her, tumbling...and I saw the days after where'd I'd hoped she still lived. I saw deep into the past where's we'd erased the life of John Berryman, the host body for Visser Four. I saw when I had finally rescued my mum from the clutches of the Yeerks and finally killed Visser One itself. I saw everything, right from the start of the war to present day, where we were hurtling at impossible speed towards an immovable object. We would hit...and we would hit...Our deaths were mere milliseconds away.  
And yet...  
And yet...  
And yet...from the corner of my eye, at the last possible second, I saw the Blade Ship fired its massive Dracon cannon. I saw through tear-jerked eyes it lance towards us. It didn't hit us full on. It hit us at a glancing blow, but it was enough to veer us of course by a few degrees. It would be enough. We hit the side of the Blade ship, scraping, screeching down its side lengthways. I saw Tobias, feathers ruffled, being jerked around violently. I saw Santorelli, Jeanne and Menderash collapsing everywhere due to the sudden increase in speed and the wild jerking and shrieking as we hurtled down the side of the ship, our side scraping violently with theirs.  
  
No one was on their feet anymore. I was being slammed none-too gently against the bulkhead, Jake beside me.  
'Ahhhhhhhhhh!' I heard Santorelli and Jeanne screaming but it was almost drowned out by the horrendous, metal-on-metal noise outside.  
Being in more situations than you can count doesn't mean you scream less. In fact you scream more. After all, you've had practise and I was screaming like a baby. I could heard Tobias' wild thought-speak scream in my head. Screaming is one way of getting past the terror. When you scream, you realise that you're still alive. For the time being.  
We blew past the Blade at shocking speed.  
You know how thrilling that was? Very. It was fun. It was also something that I would never be trying again.  
'Jake, that was way past insane!' I cried, hoping he could hear.  
'We're not clear yet,' Menderash reported. He'd somehow, amidst the jolting and rapid banging, managed to scramble to his feet and stagger to the consoles. 'The Blade Ship is getting ready to turn and fire at us.'  
'How fast is the Blade Ship at turning?' I heard Jake ask.  
'Slower than us,' Menderash replied curtly.  
'Ok then.' I saw him deciding. He'd just sent us into what I'd thought of as a certain-death experience. And now he was probably planning our deaths in another, spectacular wild display of suicidal behaviour. But that was Jake for you.  
'Turn quickly and skim over the Blade ship,' Jake said in his 'fearless- leader' voice again. 'Fire at the bridge. This ship is going down, even if we go down with it.'  
I winced. I liked the rest of the plan.  
We turned at such high velocity, he went slamming into a wall so hard I probably would have cracked my skull had Santorelli not been there to cushion me.  
'Whoooooooaaaaaaa!' we yelled. We became weightless for about a nanosecond as we turned so quickly we evaded gravity itself. And there were we...shooting towards the slowly rotating Blade ship. A horror beyond belief sat cruelly in that very ship...yes, that very ship we were rocketing towards. Sounds insane, doesn't it? It was. Believe me, it was! And I know about insane.  
Swoooooooooosh!  
We skimmed over the Blade ship like a seagull skimming over the back of a surfacing whale. Ahead, I could see the windowed bulge of the bridge. The weapons were already powered. We flew over the same bridge we had seen the foul creature called The One only minutes before. We saw it swarming with furiously moving Taxxons, a couple of Hork-Bajir and human-Controllers. Menderash, an Andalite within, fired. I saw the beam penetrate the deep blackness of space and connect with the Blade ship's bridge with extreme results.  
In a silent explosion, the entire window shattered in shards that went nowhere...just floated in the zero gravity that inhabited space. Everything that wasn't bolted or chained to the floor flew outwards in tornado of objects and creatures. I saw humans get swept outside, either flail for a few seconds before becoming still, or simply exploding due to the pressurised oxygen within their lungs in a shower of organs and blood that froze instantaneously. I saw a Taxxon fly past us, dozens of frail arms grasping at nothing. They could apparently survive longer in space because it took at least a minute for the Taxxon to finally stop struggling.  
I saw, through dozens of bodies that filled the area, the consoles of the Blade ship crackle and snap.  
Time to get out of here, Tobias said, noticing the same thing with his laser eyes.  
We shot straight upwards seconds before the ship simply exploded. I didn't hear it, I just saw, out of the corner of my eye, a brilliant light and random debris flying past us. Ok, that roller coaster ride, I could cope with. That was almost fun...except for the fact that a metal shard spiralled upwards towards us...  
'Ah,' I heard Menderash say as we cleared the dust cloud that was settling for square kilometres around in every direction, obscuring the countless bodies from view. I was glad. I didn't need to see them. Ok, I was glad we'd won, but how can anyone possibly kill dozens of people without a few seconds to grieve their deaths. They might have been filthy Yeerks that deserved to be destroyed, but that was only part of them. We had not only killed the Yeerks, we had killed their host bodies, many of which had fought on earth and won. And anyway, our initial plan—rescuing Ax—had surely failed. There probably wasn't a way of saving him from The One, but now...well, now there was no chance at all.  
'What is it, Menderash?' Jake asked, snapping to attention.  
'It appears that a shard of metal from the exploding Blade ship has buried itself in our fuel supply,' Menderash said simply. 'We will start slowly but surely losing fuel.'  
'Ok, I interpret that as 'bad',' I said, trying to absorb this new information. Losing fuel? In space? Not good. Once our fuel ran out, we'd drift around like idiots until we were either rescued or died. No, anyway, we would die. If I didn't die of starvation or thirst, I'd certainly die of boredom. Floating around in ship with nowhere to put red-tailed hawk poop? Not my idea of fun.  
'Is there anywhere were we can get more fuel?' Jake asked, sure of the answer he would receive.  
'I'm afraid not, Prince...Jake,' Menderash said. 'There are no Andalite fuel ships around for thousands of light years, I'm afraid. Even through Z- Space, the trip would take at least a year. We would run out of fuel within a week. However, if we were to ditch this ship and take another one...'  
He was offering Jake a way. A way which Jake quickly grasped. 'A ship? Are there any ships around here that we can take?'  
Menderash began pouring over a small sector of the galaxy. I saw strange lines that I didn't understand crossing the galaxy. Borderlines, perhaps? Menderash trailed his finger around for a while, then snapped his fingers.  
'There are two planets within a week's time away,' Menderash reported. 'One is frozen. I severely doubt there will sentient creatures on that planet we can 'borrow' a ship from. The other planet, however, seems promising. It is lush, with many plants, a lot of water. If we are trying to locate a ship, our best bet is to land on that planet near a settlement.'  
'A settlement? You mean, there will be sentient life on this planet?' I said, seeing exactly Menderash's point.  
'Well, no, but with such plant-life, there is a 64% chance that there will be sentient life on this planet,' Menderash said. 'Of that 64%, there is another 56% that they will have ships capable of space-travel.'  
We all kind of stared at Menderash. You're telling us we may go down on to that planet and there might not be ships, or even sentient life, down there, Tobias demanded. What will happen if there are no ships? How will we get back?  
'We won't,' Menderash replied simply. He was not one for hiding things from us. I wasn't sure that was for the better. 'We'll be stuck down there for ever, I speculate.'  
'Swell,' I muttered. 'Jake, you're our leader here, I can't deny that and I'll follow your orders unless its something that I flat out will not obey. So, what do you thing we should do?'  
I saw Jake look around. It was a swift glance. Sweeping past Tobias, Santorelli, Jeanne and Menderash, he rested his eyes on mine. I saw his slow, 'let's-do-it' smile. 'Let's do it!' he said. 


	5. Essak 143

Chapter 4  
  
His eyes had given it away. I could see this human—this Jake Berenson—was a genuine leader. A leader not afraid to take risks, a leader willing to sacrifice not only himself but all those around him for freedom. But he would only allow his friends to die if he was also killed. And that was his weakness. He could not just sit there and watch his friends die. I would hunt him down and kill him personally. He had done tremendous damage to the Yeerk Empire, reducing it to nothingness. I couldn't let him get away with that. But...But first, I myself had to survive...  
Jake had not only sentenced my fellow Yeerks and I to certain death, he had sentenced himself and his fellow Animorphs to die. Or at least I thought so. I saw everyone else, especially that fool, Efflit standing around in shock, staring up at the impossibly calm face of Jake Berenson. No one could guess what was going on in his mind; after all, he'd just sealed the death tickets of dozens of beings, Yeerk and free humans.  
I for one, was not going to stand around and die. I spun around, wide- eyed, even before Jake had given out that death-inducing order. I ran on human legs I long ago had mastered. If Jake's instructions were going to be followed, I would have zero time to get off the ship. From out of the corner of my eye, in the split-second it took me to exit the room and start hurtling down the corridor, I saw The One simply vanish, leaving the bridge ultimately darker than it was before.  
I knew where the escape pods where. I'd been in this ship for other three years now. I know every corridor, every room like the back of my hand. I rushed down the metal main corridor, then turn right. I could feel the Blade ship slowly turning. Obviously, the ship had missed and were circling to finish it off.  
'Hey, Essak!'  
I sighed. It was the fool. Efflit 1318. Normally I would have stopped, turned slowly around and replied wittily, but now was not the time for stopping and cracking jokes. Within seconds the entire ship could explode, killing us all. Wisecracks were out of the question.  
I saw the two escape pods. There was room for only a few humans, two Hork-Bajir and one Taxxon. They were circular with the front half-made out of reinforced glass. I saw a smart Hork-Bajir-Controller leap into one of the escape pods, followed by a human I didn't recognise. I leaped for the other one.  
'Essak, don't leave me behind!' I heard Efflit yell. Looking back, I saw him running as fast as his old host body would allow him down the corridor. 'Essak, wait! I don't want to die!'  
A classic coward. Nobody wants to die, I thought bitterly. No need to go broadcasting it.  
'Essak!'  
I hesitated. Waiting for Efflit would waste time, precious time that could result in my death. But leaving now...that was a classic Yeerk move. 'When the race against time is on, save yourself. Wait for nobody.' It was an old Yeerk saying the Council of Thirteen had told me in my youth. But then again, did I want to be like every other Yeerk in the galaxy? Sitting in a vat and exiting their host every three days? No, I wanted to be different. I wanted to do something different. The new empire would need every Yeerk it needed, after all...  
No, the empire would survive perfectly without Efflit 1318. I started to close the door. But no, Efflit was quick, despite his host's body's fragile body. He dived towards the door. But nothing, not even the old man flinging himself into the opening would stop the door closing.  
I closed my eyes and shuddered. No one wants to see someone severed at the waist because of a fast moving door. And yet...beyond the odds, Essak was still clinging to life even as the door vacuum-sealed itself.  
'Essak 143...' I heard him mutter. I noticed that his eyelids were drooping. He was dying. His heart had practically stopped working. His lungs no longer contributed to his slowly-failing bodily organs. 'Essak 143...die! You...haven't heard...the...'  
'Heard the last of you?' I joked as Efflit 1318 died before me and as both escape pods were thrust from the bottom of the Blade ship into space. Small engines instantly started propelling them away from the imminent danger of the Blade ship. 'Oh I think I have,' I continued, laughing at what was left of his dead body. 'Oh I think I have, Efflit 1318...'  
An explosion. Silent in the vacuum of space, but that didn't stop the shock wave shooting in every direction away from the Blade ship. The shock wave bumped into the escape pod and was instantly translated into sound. A flash later and the entire Blade ship went up in what was now a huge cloud of pressurised steam that instantly cooled in the near-absolute temperate space and froze. A brilliant light extended out for kilometres in every direction. How many Yeerks had died? Two dozen at the most. Nothing compared to the loss of the seventeen thousand back on the Pool ship on earth, but still a huge loss when the Empire was still scrambling to grab a foothold of the ever-changing Universe.  
No time to be saddened. I had to think clearly. At the moment, both escape pods were firing themselves forward, but sooner or later, they'd stop and I would have to take up the job of pilot. No time to think of...my brother! My brother had been aboard when the Blade ship had exploded. My only surviving sibling...destroyed...  
No, wait! The other escape pod. A Hork-Bajir had scrabbled inside. I had seen it only for the smallest amount of time There was always the possibility that it was my brother...After all, there were a total of six Hork-Bajir-Controllers on board. There was a one-in-six chance that the fleeing Hork-Bajir was in fact Iniss, my brother. Not that I was deeply concerned, of course...I mean, I was born with a hundred siblings. If I stopped to cry at the death of every single one, I would spend my entire life crying. But this was my last brother...it was my duty not to cry, but to at least grief...  
'Your brother is indeed dead, I'm afraid.'  
That voice. That cold, almost-mechanical, familiar voice. The One. No mistaking that monotone, yet at the same time, insanely cruel voice for anyone else.  
He appeared, shimmering from air, at the side of me, taking the form of a human. After all, his stolen Andalite body would have trouble wedged in the small escape pod. His cold, hellish seemed to burn right through me and his nefarious smile was no better.  
'I...I thought you'd...' I stammered, not believing my luck. I had just escaped the single most devastating disaster since the start of the new Empire's birth, and the most nightmarish creature possible, one I thought had perished in the explosion, had appeared right next to me.  
'Died?' The One laughed his manic, corrupted laugh that made me shudder beyond the limits of my body. 'No, you see, I don't die. I cannot die. I am incapable of dying. I was not created to die...I was created to kill.'  
'Really?' I said, reverting to my cool, calm, confident self despite the fact that probably the most powerful, yet most malevolent creature in the galaxy was sitting next to me. This was the creature that could cause my organs to explode just by saying the right word. This was the creature that could not only kill me, but also erase every evidence that I had ever existed simply by touching me.  
'Yes,' The One replied. 'Your brother is dead, as if everyone else who was aboard the Blade ship, with the exception of three Yeerks beside yourself.'  
I frowned. Three? Besides myself? I only counted two controllers leaping into the other escape pod—a Hork-Bajir and a human. Could another controller have managed to get in without my noticing? No, I realised as I looked over at the opposite escape pod. Only a Hork-Bajir and human sat there...So what was The One talking about? Who was the third Yeerk?  
'If I had my own way, I would abandon your pathetic species and leech onto another, more powerful race,' The One said, 'but I have my orders...' He paused dramatically. 'I cannot leave until you have found your feet and that attack on the Blade ship has not helped things dramatically.'  
'Can't you somehow revive the dead bodies?' I wondered out loud, forgetting for a second about my legendary grudge against The One. I instantly regretted it as soon as it slipped out of my mouth. I was speaking kindly to a potentially enemy that would have to be, undoubtedly, be exterminated. 'I'm sure you can do it, what with you being all-powerful and all, can't you?' I sneered, trying to cover up my tracks.  
'Oh, yes, I'm perfectly capable of that,' The One said, equally maliciously. 'No doubt about that. But there are rules...rules that cannot be broken. Lines...lines that cannot be crossed. And one of those rules, one of those lines, is that I cannot revive dead bodies, no matter how severe the case may be.'  
A brilliant white light crossed our path. The lights of a passing ship. The 'Enterprise', I realised suddenly, or whatever the stupid ship was called. The human-manned ship! The Animorphs! Jake Berenson! It skimmed across our path, shaking us in the wake as it passed at high velocity.  
'Their fuel is slowly expiring,' The One said, allowing his 'human' face to remain expressionless. 'They have, at most, nine days before they start floating around in deep-space. They are heading towards a not-so-far- away planet. It is one of many planets with settlements belonging to the same species of alien. They are going there hoping to find and 'borrow' another ship to return home in. They will succeed...unless we stop them.'  
STOP THEM, bellowed a magnificent voice that seemed to penetrate my entire brain, forcing me to clasp hands over my human ears and wail in terror. The voice was from an unknown, but unstoppable evil that appeared from nowhere. An evil that matched the evil of The One itself.  
'The higher powers have order me,' The One said simply. 'I must obey. Will you accompany me in destroying these foul, morph-capable humans?'  
A question I had dreaded. Who did I want dead the most? The One, of course. But the death of the Animorphs would also deeply satisfy me. After all, with the Animorphs out of the picture, I could concentrate on expelling The One from the galaxy. But...but The One was an enemy. I couldn't side with him, even to defeat a common enemy. That would be wrong...But then again, with The One's trust at my side, I could lure him into a trap.  
Idiot, I scolded myself. The One cannot be fooled. He knows all.  
No, I wouldn't help The One.  
But...but then...a memory that I wasn't sure I even had...I saw the seventeen thousand Yeerks, all defenceless, without hosts to be able to fight back, all flushed out into the dead of space. All of them died. It had been slaughter. A massacre. Annihilation. And there, in the background, was Jake Berenson's smug face as he realised what he'd accomplished.  
Yes, I would help The One exterminate Jake and the rest of his followers. But it would me who would kill Jake personally. The One could exterminate the rest of them, but Jake was mine....  
  
Hi to all the people who have been reading my story. I really appreciate your support and desperately need feedback to find out what I'm doing right and wrong. After all, this is my first fan-fic so don't be too hard.  
  
I'm planning a total of around 15 chapters in all, although that can change. Unless a lot of people enjoyed my work, I probably won't be doing anymore stories, so e-mail me if you have anything to say. 


	6. Jake

Chapter 5  
  
The worry of wether I had done the right thing weighed down on my shoulders, making it almost impossible to stand. For most of the journey, I lay on the floor, pretending to be asleep, but in reality, I got about two hours of sleep each day. I could feel the pressure gnawing away inside me, slowly leaving gaps in my insides. Had I done the right thing? Was zooming off to a strange planet where there was only a small chance that there were sentient species there with Z-Space capable spacecraft the right thing to do? After all, even if they did have the correct spaceships, would they be friendly enough to allow us to take one? What if they were hostile?  
But then again, was floating around in space, slowly dying of starvation and thirst, waiting for non-existent Andalites to show up and refuel us also the right thing to do. I'd rather die by a beam weapon, quick and hopefully painless, than by starvation. I thought that the others would agree...but no, I realised, thinking even further, Marco wouldn't want that. I could imagine him saying, 'But I don't want to die at all, Jake!'  
I almost smiled. But a smile, one that is created genuinely because you are amused, was rare these days, especially for me. I had my cruel smile still around and my smug smile was still in business somewhere, but my amused smile had faded out into the background, never to reappear.  
It just made me realise how harsh war was and how it changed. I had always been serious, but had always also been able to laugh at Marco's jokes. I had a sense of humour, but lately it had been swarmed with seriousness and pressure, a pressure that still hung like a much-too-heavy curtain over my shoulders. Even Marco had turned the slightest bit serious, but he wouldn't let us down on the joke side, I hoped. A Marco without unfunny jokes wasn't the Marco I knew so well.  
And then there was Tobias. Marco and I, and even Cassie back on earth, well, we'd changed more subtly. After all, Tobias had managed to change from being a human boy that was occasionally picked on to a fierce bird with eyes that penetrated your skin and a cruel, ripping beak. Sure, I'd changed into many different animals. Tiger, wolf, flea, chimpanzee, rhino...But I had always returned to be human form afterwards. For a long time, Tobias' only form was the form he was stuck in...red-tailed hawk. And even when he did regain his morphing abilities, instead of demorphing into a human when the two-hour time limit was up, he would have to demorph into his red-tailed hawk body, which was now more himself than his human morph.  
I sat up, looking at Santorelli and Jeanne. They were complete unknowns. In a situation, I didn't know how they'd react. Would they be perfectly solid, go fighting until the very end? Or would they turn and run away? After all, if I'd been in their shoes, whisked off into outer-space for a year, before fighting brain-stealing aliens that lived in muddy puddles—well, I might do the same? Would they surrender, hoping that was the way to survive? Or worse, would they betray us?  
I know Marco and Tobias. Even Menderash, to some extent since I had spent three years with the company of Aximili, and knew pretty much how the Andalite mind worked. I knew Menderash would never betray us and I knew he would be willing to kill himself for the freedom of his people. I knew those three people. But I didn't know Santorelli and Jeanne. That was a problem I should have foreseen.  
I glanced sideways. Marco and Menderash were at the console again, which is where they spent most of their time. Tobias was watching the scene with his laser eyes. I also saw Santorelli and Jeanne huddled in a small corner, whispering about something I couldn't hear. Perhaps I should get up and interrupt them, see what they were saying. Started to get up...but realised the pressure still dragged me down. No, the ship could manage without me for a few more minutes. I slid back down and tried to get to sleep.  
  
It was six more days before we caught sight of our destination. We mad one Z-Space jump to minimise the time, but Menderash told us this was extremely risky. If our fuel supply vanished while we were in Zero Space...well, nobody wanted to think about floating in a blank, empty whiteness for the rest of their lives. We emerged in quite a lively part of space. A few hundred thousand kilometres away, I saw an asteroid belt, slowly circling what looked like a dead, frozen world. The planet Menderash had spoke off. Also there, according to the ship's map, perhaps eight hundred thousand kilometres away was the planet we were heading. It had no name.  
By now, everyone was eager. Menderash, a true Andalite, wanted to see if there were sentient species down there and if there were, to see if they were as of yet unknown. If they were, he would be the first Andalite to see them and therefore, discover them and name them if they didn't already have a name for themselves. Tobias wanted to see if there was live prey down there. He had been living on frozen animals for a year and although he hadn't complained, I knew he needed life prey. I knew he wanted to swoop down on it and squeeze his talons into its still-warm body...I know, after all, since I've been a bird of prey before. Marco wanted to go because he was just bored. I wanted to go solely to find a ship to get home in and maybe see Cassie again. What did Santorelli and Jeanne want? I didn't know. Again, it was an example of how little I knew them.  
But then again, Tobias' ears were strong.  
I looked over at Tobias. He was in his human morph, as he did every few days to eat the food we ate. I pulled him aside.  
'The other day when Santorelli and Jeanne were whispering in the corner,' I said quietly so nobody else would overhear. 'Did you hear what they were saying?'  
'Of course,' Tobias said proudly. 'You underestimate hawk ears, Jake.'  
'And...what were they talking about?' I asked.  
Tobias hesitated, but only for a moment. He wouldn't...no, couldn't...lie to me. 'Morphing,' Tobias replied bluntly. 'They were talking about morphing.'  
I was confused for a second. Why were they talking about morphing? 'But Santorelli and Jeanne don't have the power to morph,' I said in puzzlement.  
'Exactly,' Tobias said, 'but they wish they had. I heard Santorelli say, 'Ok, look, I know I agreed to come on this mission, but that was only for two reasons. One was that I could get to know the Animorphs and say, when I got back to earth, 'I not only saw them, I went on a mission with them!' The second reason was that I hoped that I could morph. I've heard Jake talk about how great being a dolphin and a falcon is. I really wanted to try that for myself, you know. I expected both of us to be given the power and for us to acquire animals or whatever, but that doesn't seem the case anymore. In fact, I wish I never came in the first place. This mission is one big suicidal idea after another. I've had enough of it.' I don't think they exactly see you as their prince, Jake.'  
'Do you?' I asked nervously, fearing the answer. When Tobias had found out I sentenced Rachel to death by telling her to infiltrate the Blade ship and destroy Tom, he had raged at me and barely spoke to me until the end of war, and even then it was simply, Hello and Goodbye, Jake. He had stolen the urn that held Rachel's ashes without a word. Would he still consider me as his leader? After all, he had morphed Andalite back on earth when I'd ordered him to.  
There was a pause. 'Sure, Jake.'  
'What do we do then?' I asked, feeling stupid. After all, I had just asked Tobias if he considered me his leader and here I was, asking him questions. I was supposed to be a fearless leader, not go asking people questions every time I didn't know what to do. But then again, while warring against the Yeerks on earth, I'd never really thought of myself of a real leader. I was only towards the end, when the war with the Yeerks intensified so much we had to make huge sacrifices, that I began to act like a real leader; rapping out orders that could end in my friend's dead, sacrificing thousands to save the millions of earth, instructing Cassie and the others to do things they might not agree with, telling them to hold on when everything else seemed like a lost cause. It was then that I felt like a true leader. But in the years that followed, I had lost that status, acting like a zombie, wandering around like a hollowed version of myself. Perhaps now was the time to get my head out of my rear end and start acting like the Jake I had acted like many years ago, despite the granite-slab pressure that slammed down on my shoulder.  
'I don't know, Jake,' Tobias replied uncertainly. 'We can't give them the morphing power. For one, we don't have the blue box, for two, would we want to? After all, we gave David morphing abilities, look how that turned out.'  
David had been an ordinary boy, like me, or Marco or even Tobias before he got trapped in red-tailed hawk morph. An ordinary boy, that is until he found the blue box. Long story cut short: Visser Three found out David had the box and tried to hunt him down. We gave him morphing abilities and allowed him to join us. He betrayed us. We trapped him in rat morph. Not the nicest way to spend the rest of your life, but as Cassie said, better than dying. But when you thought carefully about it, was it?  
'We also gave James and the other auxiliary Animorphs the power,' I pointed out, 'and they helped us a lot, especially when we needed a distraction to get aboard the Pool ship...' I fell silent, remembering that scene of slaughter. That was the moment James and the others died. They died, providing us a distraction for us to climb aboard the Pool ship, when in fact we were already on board. 'But, you're right anyway,' I continued heavily. 'After all, we don't have the blue box.'  
'Ok, we pretend we haven't heard,' I said quickly, acting the part of leader again. 'After all, they can't possibly know how good your hearing is, can they? We pretend we haven't heard them but we have to keep a careful eye of them, Tobias, Ok? I, or anyone else, for that matter, can't tell what they're saying when they go off whispering, but you can, Tobias. Will you do that for me?'  
There was another pause, this one shorter than the other one. 'Yes.'  
'Good.' I headed out towards the other, but hesitated and turned back. 'Thanks, Tobias. You've been a real help over the years, you know that? Without your hawk eyes and ears, I don't know what we'd have done without you.'  
I was about to go to Marco and see what the report was, but I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around again to see tears forming in Tobias' human face. Normally, being in a hawk body, he didn't know how to use human expressions when in morph. There was no mistaking what was on Tobias' face, though.  
'Tobias?'  
'It's...nothing.' He shrugged. 'Just thinking about Ax, that's all.'  
I understood. Tobias had been closest to Ax during his time on earth. After all, what with Ax being a freaky part-human, part-deer, part-scorpion alien and Tobias being part-human, part-hawk, part-Andalite, they seemed right for each other. Ax considered Tobias his shorm, a person he could trust even with their tail blade against his throat and I'm sure Tobias thought the same of Ax.  
'He's dead, isn't he?'  
I couldn't lie. Not only would it have been wrong, but Tobias knew me. He could spot a lie as easily as he could spot mice in a field.  
'Yes, he is,' I replied gently. 'Even if The One, or whatever that freaky alien was called, didn't kill him, the explosion of the Blade ship surely must have. We just have the remember Ax because of the good times we had with him on earth.'  
It was an example of how the Animorphs had changed in the space of a few years. One was dead, another almost certainly-dead, another left behind on earth. Another, a hawk. The rest on a deep-space mission with little chance of ever surviving. Sure, there were three more members, but I could never call them true Animorphs, not when two were unable to morph and one was an Andalite trapped in a human body, never to morph again.  
It was strange how fast we'd coped with such changes. Only seconds after realising Ax was dead, we were planning on returning to earth, without pausing even for a few minutes to mourn Ax's death. Sure, we'd mourned Rachel, some more than others, but she was a true Animorph, with us from the very beginning and a human. She hadn't deserved to die. She was a true warrior on the inside, a pretty girl with the instincts to shop on the outside. She didn't deserve to die. She should be here with us, enjoying the thrill.  
But then again, so should Ax. If we mourned the death of Rachel, why not the death of Ax? Because he was alien, not human? Not an excuse. He was almost as one of us as Rachel. He had trusted us, confided in us and proved countless times that he thought of humans as his own species rather than Andalites. So why had we not grieved Ax's death and we had Rachel's, I thought bitterly. Perhaps that's what we'd become.  
Then, there was Marco's voice calling to me from the console, 'Jake, Tobias, you have got to look at this!' 


	7. Tobias

Chapter 6  
  
Wiping tears from my human eyes, I followed Jake to where Marco and Menderash were standing. From another direction, Santorelli and Jeanne appeared. There was a small huddle around the front screen window. I struggled to barge through, but my human morph was not as big as Jake or Santorelli or Menderash's human morph since it is not my true body and therefore does not grow older like my red-tailed hawk body does.  
'What is it?' I heard Jake ask.  
'It's the planet,' Marco replied smartly, pointing. 'Look.'  
I finally pushed myself through the small crowd and looked out of the window. Directly in front of us, no more than a hundred thousand kilometres away, and getting closer at a shocking speed, was the planet we had been looking for for nearly a week. It was smallish, maybe three-quarters the size of earth, but like earth and presumably like the Andalite homeworld, it seemed extremely lush. Stretching from pole to pole were enormous rainforests, although we were still too far away to analyse it properly. There was one ocean as far as I could see (although there might have been more around the other side of the planet) and it was small compared to the oceans of earth, maybe the size of a medium-sized country. There was a mountain ridge that seemed to go all the way around the planet, although apart from that, the planet seemed almost flat.  
By the way, my name is Tobias. With the exception of Ax, I guess I'm the strangest of the Animorph. A human, who incidentally, is the son of Elfangor, who got trapped in a morph. Not the smartest thing to do, but in some way, it really helped me. It taught me not to give in easily, and when I finally gave in, the hawk that was now 'me' would rise up and take control. People used to call me. Bullies at school, I guess. Now they worship me.  
Not that I want to be worshipped, but its better than being bullied.  
I used to be confused about my identity. What was I? A hawk? A human? And Andalite? A bit of all of them? Or worse, neither? But now, there's no point wondering. After all, as long as you're loved, who cares what you are? And although Rachel has passed away, I knew she still loved me, and always would.  
I was a hawk. I hunted and lived like one, swooping on unsuspecting mice and shrews. I had the body of a hawk. I had the awesome eyes of a hawk, the unbeleivable ears of a hawk. But was I a hawk?  
I was an Andalite. After all, Ax was my brother and Elfangor, the once- mighty warrior, was my father. I would happily give my life to save the lives of my people, my friends, or simply for freedom. But was I an Andalite?  
I was a human. I thought like one. I could read like one, I liked their taste in music. When Rachel had died because of Jake's 'important' orders, I had grieved her death like a human and finally forgiven Jake. Just like a human would. But was I really a human?  
And did I really matter?  
Looking at the ship's accurate clock, I realised I should be demorphing soon. I backed off slightly, leaving the others to gawk at the planet, and felt the familiar changes begin.  
I felt myself shrinking, as always. Shrinking is a lot like falling, except your feet never leave the ground. At first, you're looking at people's faces, then their necks, then their waists, then their knees and you stop shrinking level with their ankles. Feathers than began as light sketches sprinkling down my arms and chest began sprouting. I could feel the slight tickling as they did so, but I've done this morph countless times before. I could cope with it.  
I could feel light, hollow bones that allowed me to fly replace the heavy, dense human bones. My arms stretched up horizontally. I could feel even more feathers finding their way out of my body. Atop my head, my dirty blonde hair began melding together to form the crown feathers.  
My nose and upper lip began to suddenly pull together and melt, like fast-running wax. I looked down and there, was my nose practically bulging outwards and hardening. Not something you want to see everyday. This new formation of mutated growth began to curve towards a point at the end and became my so familiar red-tailed hawk beak. Through all this, I was still shrinking until I came to a dead stop between Marco's ankles and knees. My legs were suddenly erupting in yellow scales and shortening as they did. I could feel toes melding together or vanishing together or simply swivelling around to the back of my foot. In the end, I was left with three toes, three toes that were rapidly thinning and growing, instead of toenails, huge, cruel talons.  
Yeah, sure, I was many times much smaller than my human body, but in reality, I was many times more powerful. After all, can a human swoop down at a hundred kilometres an hour at an unsuspecting Hork-Bajir and rip his eyes out or leave severe gashes in their bodies? No, can a hawk? Oh, most definitely. I was smaller, that was true, but I was just one big bundle of feathers wrapped in a bomb about to attack.  
Now, let's get something straight. On earth, I was the best Animorph at flying, due to the fact that i had way too much practise. I could perform stunts that the best pilot could never perform even if he had the best plane in the world. While I was still spiralling centimetres from the treetops, he would be burning and heading for ground. But that was on earth, and that was when I had thermals, rising columns of hot air.  
Now I was in some crummy spaceship that was way too small for me to fly any distance and was seriously lacking thermals. Without thermals, taking off was extremely hard for a bird that required them.  
So you can imagine the struggle of taking off in dead air in a space the size of a medium-sized garden and having to avoid walls, the floor and ultimately, the ceiling. I flapped futilely and tried to power myself up with my feet. Normally, I wouldn't have been able to do it, but I'd been in this lousy, way-too-cramped spaceship for almost a year and had practise. Pushing myself off, I frantically flapped my wings and flew, centimetres above the floor, struggling for non-existant headwind. Ok, I was airborne, but barely. A wall! I cranked, my tail feather, turning miniscule distances to allow me to bank sharply and turned heavily, scraping the wall as I past. Now I was slightly higher up, but the only way to reach my perch where I spent the majority of my time was to circle the room, getting slightly higher each time.  
I skimmed over the heads of the Animorphs and the others as they continued staring out of the window at the planet that loomed ever closer. Nobody looked up as I zoomed over them, finally gaining enough altitude to flap persistently and land on my perch overlooking the front screen.  
'Menderash?' Jake asked in the I-am-the-leader-please-answer-my- question-quickly tone. 'What's the report on the planet?'  
'The majority of the planet is made up of lush rainforests,' Menderash replied without hesitation. He seemed to have finally considered Jake his 'prince'. 'However, if my speculations are correct, there were will be no sentient creatures there apart from tribal beasts, as the rainforests are probably full of predators and dangerous animals. Instead, I presume sentient creatures will be found in the areas between the forests. I have located a promising site. It is an area of flat ground, ten square kilometres big, next to a small lake. If there is any sentient life on this planet at all, there will be some there.'  
'So that's were we're headed, I presume,' Marco asked.  
There was a tense pause by Jake. 'Yes.'  
'Aye, aye, Captain,' Marco mocked.  
Maximum burn, Menderash said to the computer.  
Okay, being a human under the effect of maximum burn is bad enough, but being a bird...Not the best of feelings, being propelled backwards at shocking speed into a wall as the ship underwent changes from a leisurely speed to an impossibly high speed. And I spent so long working to get up to that perch...  
Still, I could help smiling (inwardly, of course—hawks can't smile) as the others shot backwards in a flurry of arms and legs. Only Menderash, who grabbed onto a steel handlebar nanoseconds before the ship accelerated forwards, managed to stay upright.  
I saw Jeanne disappear as she was bombarded by the bodies of Santorelli and Jake. Marco went flying in my direction.  
Through binocular vision, I saw the planet looming up like a huge lush, asteroid in front of us. It used to be scary. After all, flying a ship so close to a huge planet, which, I used to think, could roll over and squash us, seemed terrifying at one point, but of course, that's impossible. As big as it was, it couldn't harm us...until we landed, of course. As we moved ever closer to it, I saw strange, swirling clouds travelling as fast as a car across an emerald-green sky.  
'Sensors show numerous life,' Menderash said as the ship slowed down enough for us to actually hear each other, 'although I cannot yet tell if sentient life is present.'  
We flew through the thick atmosphere of the planet. We had to slow down so as not to be destroyed by the heavy air. I saw everyone else scramble to their feet, muttering sullenly.  
'Beats the roller coasters,' Marco said.  
We dropped from the atmosphere kilometres up to just above ground level, maybe only twenty metres, where the treetops reached up to scrape the bottom of the ship. And what strange trees they were. Ok, maybe not entirely strange compared to the weird asparagus-like trees Andalites have on their home world, or the vertically-challenged trees on the Yeerk world, or maybe the enormous Hork-Bajir trees, but to earth trees, they weren't exactly normal. They shot straight up for maybe fifteen metres: no bumps on the trunks, no indents, just plain, smooth trunks that split up into three horizontal branches. These branches in turn split up into three smaller branches, and again until there were dozens of tiny branches, each with a single, brown leaf on the end.  
I could see strange birds that just seemed to be two wings. There didn't appear to be any body between the wings. They flew oddly, one wing beating downwards, the other beating upwards. I watched one in fascination as we zoomed overhead.  
'There is a clearing up ahead,' I heard Menderash say quietly, as if he didn't want anyone to hear, but, of course, my ears heard everything.  
Was Menderash trying to avoid saying something? Was there something wrong that he wasn't telling us? I looked around at everyone. Santorelli and Jeanne looked unbeknownst. Jake shot a glance at Menderash but then looked back at the screen. But of course, the one person even Menderash couldn't fool: Marco. Those dark brown, sceptical eyes looked sideways at Menderash, then up towards me. So, he'd felt something too and if there was someone who noticed odd things first in the group, it was Marco.  
Is he trying to hide anything? I asked Marco in private thought speak.  
I couldn't answer of course, not without giving away what we were talking about, but I saw the ever so slight shrug from Marco's shoulders that told me he had heard.  
'Perhaps we should avoid this particular clearing,' Menderash said.  
Oh, yes, he was definitely hiding something. Intense, brilliant yellow hawk eyes and dark shrewd eyes focused intently on him.  
'Is something wrong?' Jake asked.  
There was a short pause. I could almost see Menderash's brain turning, but not even my hawk eyes were that good.  
'No, of course not,' Menderash said sharply.  
Now even Jake was suspicious. Marco turned towards him and jerked his head in Menderash's direction. Jake raised an eyebrow.  
'Beginning to land,' Menderash reported.  
I saw the ground jumping up at us as we started our descent. Perhaps I was wrong, perhaps I was paranoid. But I had been in the company of Aximili- Esgarrouth-Isthil for three years and I had learned when an Andalite was lying. Menderash may now be a permanent human, but the signs were still there.  
Menderash was hiding something from us. But what was it? 


	8. Marco

Chapter 7  
  
How many alien planets have I been on now? Let me think: there was the Leeran home planet way back, an ocean-filled body with only one continent and a few islands. The life in the seas had been amazing, much more extravagant than marine life on earth. Then there was the Hork-Bajir planet. The massive trees (some three quarters of a kilometre tall) took up most of my view, although the strange, remnants of the Arn city was something to gape at. I've also seen the Andalite homeworld, or at least part of it on Andalite Dome ships. I've seen a few Andalite wildlife, they were weird too. I've seen the Pemalite home world through the hologram the pacifist android Erek had created. And I have a pretty good idea what the Yeerk homeworld looks like. All of them were weird. But this planet was just plain bizarre, almost as strange as the Iskoort planet I had the misfortune of being on for a short period of time.  
The ship touched quietly down. I saw the smooth, multi-branched trees in the corner of my eyes. I could see grass that looked more like the pieces of paper you scrape out from the bottom of a office shredder. Some strands were tall and flat, others small and thick. But the thing that really caught my attention was the strange village perhaps three hundred metres away.  
Now, I use the term village because the settlement was not large, not because I could see quaint little cottages with thatched roofs. No, these buildings were far from that. They looked like dull, foreboding ice-cream cones turned upside down so the point faced the sky. I hadn't a clue what they were made up of, but it wasn't something I was familiar with. At the top of the 'cone' was some sort of radar that turned this way and that, usually slowly, but occasionally faster as if it had heard something. There was no visible doors or windows, but who knew what creatures lived on this planet and what substitutes they had for doors. What looked like dark brown vines seemed to encircle the building, as if someone had just come along and wound vines around it. There were about ten of these strewn randomly around the clearing, also dotted with one or two different types of building: one that looked like a thick trident standing up on its own, the other looking like someone had just clustered lego bricks together, without any thought of what they were making, and came up with that. These last two were many times bigger than the smaller 'houses', as I had come to call them.  
'What the...?' Jake asked in awe, as he finally noticed these strange buildings.  
I looked around at my fellow Animorphs and recruits. I saw Jake, his brain cogs whirling. I could almost feel him asking himself, What should we do? Should we investigate? What if they are hostile? What if one of us is killed? His face may have seemed fearless, co-ordinated even, but I've known Jake nearly all my life, and I know when he's arguing with himself inside.  
I saw Tobias, his intense hawk eyes almost burning a hole through the buildings outside as he focused intently on him. But Tobias' face was expressionless as a hawk face can be. It was probably the one face out of the six of us whom I could not read. I looked over at Menderash. He seemed to be squirming around, his eyes shifty. What was up with this guy? First he hid something from us, and then he seems like he wants to get out of here. What was his problem? I saw him glance nervously out of one of the tiny, slanted side windows.  
Both Santorelli, and Jeanne, who had remained silent during most of the trip, were as quiet as ever, glancing around apprehensively. Again, there was something up with those two as well, and Jake knew something about it, I could tell. Still, he was keeping his mouth shut for the moment.  
'Wait here,' Menderash said, looking around at everyone, 'I'll not be a moment.'  
He vanished into a storage room. I glanced at Jake in puzzlement. He simply shrugged and turned away.  
Menderash reappeared with familiar weapons cradled in his arms: Dracon beams. He passed one to Jake, one to myself, and one to both Santorelli and Jeanne. He kept one for himself.  
'What are these for?' Jake asked, looking down at the Dracon beam in confusion.  
Menderash looked puzzled for a second, then shook his head ever so slightly. 'Just for precautions,' he replied.  
Ok, now my heart was beating ever so slightly faster than normal. Precautions? Maybe. I might have believed that if Menderash hadn't hidden something from us before, or looked shifty and nervous when we landed. There was something Menderash was worried about and he wanted us to be well protected.  
I looked over at Santorelli and Jeanne. They were whispering to each other and holding the Dracon beams between their thumbs and first finger as if they thought the beams were some sort of rotten science experiment gone wrong. I walked over to them as Jake and Menderash started talking tactically.  
'Hey,' I said.  
Santorelli and Jeanne looked up in surprise. I hadn't spoken to them properly during the trip. I had spent most of my time with Menderash at the control panel.  
'Hello,' Jeanne said politely. Santorelli just nodded in acceptance.  
'Do you want me to show you how to hold these things properly?' I asked.  
'Yeah, go on then.' Was there a sneer in Santorelli's voice? No, of course not. I was just being paranoid.  
'Ok, first thing we need to understand,' I said, acting like some teacher I had had in fourth grade, 'is that these weapons were originally designed for Hork-Bajir hands. You know about the Hork-Bajir, right? Well, as you can see, they were built for clawed, large hands, but we can still use them. We just have to make sure we don't shoot ourselves in the foot. Now, they're like normal guns. You hold it, with your finger on the trigger, except when you fire, there is no recoil, which is good. Now, as you can see, there are lots of different settings on the Dracon beam, ranging from small stuns to a beam powerful enough, it can burn a hole in a mountain. Let's have both of yours of setting four. That'll stun large creatures and kill smaller ones. After all, we don't know what's out there and if they are friendly or not.'  
Bad choice of words perhaps. I saw Santorelli and Jeanne glance at each nervously, as they had done for the past year or so.  
'But...but what if they aren't friendly?' Santorelli asked apprehensively. He didn't sound scared, just worried, almost as if everything was a nightmare. In a nightmare, you become worried, even nervous, but you can only become scared in reality.  
'Then, we'll shoot our way out of here,' I said simply. 'Or morph.'  
Again, Santorelli and Jeanne looked at each other. They were about to say something, but—  
'Everyone off the ship!' I heard Menderash say loudly, almost screaming the words out. 'Get off the ship! NOW!'  
Andalites rarely shout and when they do, they have a good reason behind their outbursts. I heard a Swooosh! as the ship door swung open. I looked over at Jake.  
'You heard him!' he yelled. 'Out! Now!'  
I didn't need telling a third time. My heart hammering like a set of drums in my chest, I raced for the exit, not knowing why I was running. That's the scariest terror of all. I've seen Hork-Bajir, I've fought them, and I've run silly away from them. And I was plenty scared then. But the most terrifying thing is when you don't know where or what your enemy was. Like now. We were running from something I had not yet seen.  
Jeanne and Santorelli scrambled in front of me, running as if they had never felt this terrified before. Which may have been true. Me, I've been through worse things. Doesn't make it any better though. Santorelli and Jeanne were out first, leaping down the ramp onto the planet's surface. Menderash was next. Then me, running, falling, getting to me feet and jumping through the hatch. Then there was Tobias, swooping low and rocketing like a bullet out of there. And finally Jake, after making sure everyone else had managed to escape, jumped out.  
'Don't stop!' I heard Menderash shout. 'Run! Run!'  
We ran. We ran like the crazed fools we were, through needle-sharp grass, alerting huge, beast-like insects underfoot as we went. Menderash led, using his fit human morph to leap over rat-sized beetles, or whatever they were, that lay in our path. I scrambled only centimetres behind him. Behind me, Jake made sure Santorelli and Jeanne didn't lag behind. Above us all, Tobias tore through the heavy air.  
'Ok, stop,' Menderash said.  
We all stopped and turned back towards the ship we had run so crazily from. Instantly, I noticed the danger. A turret. Beyond the ship, maybe fifty metres or so, I saw a turret, and there, nestled at the top of the turret, lay something that resembled a Dracon cannon. It's 'locater', or whatever you may call them, locked onto the ship.  
TSEEEEEEW!  
The ship exploded. No other words can describe it. Fragments of the once glorious Rachel spun and spiralled into the air. I saw all my DVDs and computer games go up in smoke. I saw the ship we had called 'home' for the last year be reduced to a few atoms, rising up in the heavy alien air. The all-too-familiar mushroom cloud rose up spectacularly into the air. I saw a few birds that were unlucky enough to be flying overhead at the time, be sucked into the cloud. I was blasted by a wave of rendering heat that made my flesh bubble for a few seconds, before the heat was withdrawn.  
Then...rising up through the noise of the explosion...an alarm.  
'Quick! The creatures of this settlements have been alerted,' Menderash shouted over the noise. 'We do not know if they are hostile or not. Into the trees where we can decide better!'  
We ran, stumbling, scrambling into the strange trees that populated the forest. I saw some sort of creature emerging from behind a building, but it was too far away for me to see it properly.  
'Jake,' I whispered, crawling close to him. 'Jake? What do we do?'  
'These creatures had turrets around,' he answered, 'but that doesn't mean they are not friendly. That just may mean they are safety-freaks or something. Maybe they're under attack from another species and the turret was a form of defence. Or, these aliens may genuinely ferocious. We don't know. But let's be on the safe side. Marco? Morph. I'll do the same. Tobias? Stay up top and look around, but if things don't look good, land and morph into something fierce. Menderash? You can be the talker. Santorelli? Jeanne? Stay here were it's safe. We'll come back for you, although if we seem to be in trouble, fire the Dracon beams, Ok?'  
I glanced at Santorelli and Jeanne. They look nervous considering the situation, but they nodded reluctantly in agreement.  
We ducked further into the trees. And, thinking of one of my favourite morph so many years ago, I felt the once-familiar changes begin. 


	9. Jake

Chapter 8  
  
I've been more animals than I can count. I've flown with the wings of a peregrine falcon, a seagull, a cockatoo. I've swum with the flippers of a dolphin and a killer whale and with the fins of a trout and a shark. I've seen through the amazing, yet weird, eyes of a fly, cockroach, ant and mosquito. I've been so many earth animals...I've even been a few creatures that don't belong on earth, such as the Hork-Bajir, the Howler, the Leeran. I've felt the mind of prey, and I've felt the mind of a predator, such as the polar bear, the shark, even the Tyrannosaurus Rex. But none were as amazing as the tigers.  
Under the canopy, I concentrated on the image of a tiger, pacing through the jungle, and instantly felt the morph beginning. I felt weak muscles rippling under skin that rapidly changed from pink to deep orange, mixed with black stripes and a hint of white. I saw this strange fur cascading down my body, down my legs, up my arms, down my torso. It reached every nook and cranny of my body.  
I felt my knee bones reverse suddenly and I found myself on all fours. My face bulged out and sprouted whiskers. I felt my ears travelling up the side of my head and becoming pointed. My eyes began to change from round, weak human eyes into slanted, powerful tiger eyes that could penetrate darkness as if it were daylight. I could feel incredibly powerful tiger teeth replacing pathetic human teeth inside my mouth. Claws that could disembowel an ox exploded from hands that were rapidly transforming into paws.  
With muscles still bulging, I felt myself expanding, growing larger, and larger. A tail shot out of my rear end.  
I was a huge, three hundred kilogram Siberian tiger with teeth as big as fingers and paws as big as frying pans. No one could challenge me and survive. I would make sure of that. See, the tiger had power no human could ever dream of having. A tiger was made out of liquid steel. It slunk around like it owned the place, which in fact, it did. In my tiger morph, I had no fears. I had no enemies. I felt only cautious, not nervous. Never nervous. What did the tiger have to be nervous about? Man? Pah, the tiger could end any man's life with a single swipe of its paw. Man had to use guns to kill me.  
Looking over I saw Marco's gorilla morph ripping out of his frame. I saw the course black hair sprouting all over his body. I saw Tobias, screeching and circling in the sky above us. I saw Menderash, unable to morph, looking on in jealousy as Marco and I completed our morph. Santorelli and Jeanne looked awed.  
I sniffed the air with my nose and instantly a flood of smells came rushing back. I could smell two humans, I was sure of that. Two were scared and shaking, the other almost fearless. I could smell a gorilla, flexing its huge muscles. But I could also smell ten other creatures. They all smelled the same so they obviously belonged to the same species, but I couldn't, for the life of me, work out what they were. It was not a smell either the tiger or human parts of me recognised.  
'Ok, let's go and see if these aliens are friendly or not,' I said.  
Usually, I might feel slightly sick. We were heading into possible battle and I had just given those fateful words that dragged my friends in with me. Usually, the pressure would have weighed down like a slab of cement on my shoulders and dragged me down, but the tiger's shoulders were so much more powerful than mine. I could carry the weight. The tiger knew nothing of my human moralities and couldn't care less about them. It wanted to hunt, and as long as I stayed hidden behind the tiger, that was perfectly fine with me.  
I sneaked out of the forest, moving like the graceful cat I was, silent and liquid-like. Behind me was the slightly more conspicuous and slightly more cumbersome and lumbering gorilla. Behind Marco was Menderash.  
The nearest creature spotted us almost instantly and pointed a weapon at us.  
They looked a bit like birds. They stood on two, scaly and clawed legs that resembled ostrich legs. You know, those thick, yellow legs that thinned down to two monstrous claws that could rip you apart if it kicked at you. Each claw was the size of my hand. Their large torsos seemed to be covered in sharp, odd grey feathers that stuck out here and there, unlike Tobias' neat feathers. They had four arms, One set was human like, but seemed weaker and only had three fingers of each bony hand. The other set, the lower set, resembled lobster claws and were at least twice the size of the weaker, upper human hands. Occasionally, these claws would snap, and when they did, the entire creature seemed to whirr like a machine for a few seconds.  
The neck also resembled an ostrich's one. It snaked upwards and ended in a strange, totally un-bird-like head for such a bird-like body. Instead, the head was made up of a strange, elongated snout which ended in some sort of tube, obviously a mouth of some sort. I could see the inside of the tube was ringed with unnatural, misshapen, needle-like teeth and at least two, snake-like tongues that flickered in and out of the mouth every few seconds. It had no visible nose, but four eyes. Two eyes were twice the size of human eyes, seemed triangular in shape and had multiple pupils. The other two eyes, each the size of buttons on a TV remote, were situated just below the main eyes, and didn't seem to blink or move much. The ears were concealed by feather that continued up the neck, but stopped just before the head began. Instead of being covered in grey feather, the face was covered in fine vibrantly red fur.  
It was so strange it seemed like someone had stuck the head of a completely different species onto the body of an ostrich and added a few extra arms here and there. A long, yet thick tail, scaly and toughened, extended back from the body and ended in some sort of thickened club-shaped bone that seemed to be some sort of weapon.  
'Frud fuiny!' I heard one of the creatures exclaim in a high-pitched voice.  
Instantly, the rest of the creatures seemed to swarm towards us like ducks or geese do when they find out you have bread for them. They all stared at the three of us with strange, slightly-glowing eyes. The 'main' eyes seemed perfectly normal, but the smaller, 'lesser' eyes seemed to have a slightly turquoise tinge to them.  
Menderash approached them and placed his hands up, a gesture that he had no weapons. Actually, he had stuffed his down the back of his trousers in case of emergencies. Marco still had his grasped firmly in his powerful gorilla hands. I had lost mine when I had morphed. Being unable to carry Dracon beams with my paws, I had simply dropped it. I didn't need it anyway. My claws and teeth were all that I needed.  
'Do you speak English?' Menderash asked slowly, as if he were talking to a toddler who couldn't quite grasp hard words yet.  
There was a slight pause, then...  
We can speak the same language as you, yes, the closest one replied.  
Menderash looked confused. 'Can you speak normally and use thought speak?' he asked.  
We use normal speech when communicating with other members of our species, the creature replied in a completely monotone voice, but we use thought speak when talking to other species.  
'I see. What is your species called?'  
We have no name for ourselves, but other species call us the Kelbrid.  
I jerked. Even in my tiger body, I jerked. Menderash had told us very briefly about the Kelbrid before we set off on the mission. They inhabited an area of the galaxy called Kelbrid space, where no Andalites were allowed to venture, due to some strange law. If Andalites entered Kelbrid space, an intergalactic war could ensure. Which was why Menderash had permanantly morphed into a human, since our mission to locate the Blade ship would lead us into unknown Kelbrid territory.  
As I suspected, Menderash said in private thought speak. This was why I was so reluctant to land here.  
'We are humans,' Menderash said, pointing to himself, then to Marco, then me. 'I am a human. These are humans, but they are in morph...'  
Fool! the Kelbrid said loudly. I can see the two animals are humans in morph. Just as easily as I can see you are an Andalite.  
Menderash faked a laugh. 'Andalite? No, you have got it wrong, my friend,' he lied. 'No, I am a human. Look.'  
You are an Andalite in human morph, the Kelbrid replied calmly. I can see that. No need to try and deceive us. What is an Andalite doing in Kelbrid space. There is laws against that, if I remember. No Andalites are allowed to trespass into Kelbrid space.  
Menderash seemed to have lost control now. 'Well...I...can assure you...I...didn't mean to...' he stammered.  
I looked towards the Kelbrid. And do you know what the punishment is for entering Kelbrid space? he asked quietly, almost a whisper.  
Menderash shook his head.  
Not only death—for you, the Kelbrid replied, but also an intergalactic war between us and Andalites.  
Ok, things weren't going too well. I didn't know what powers the Kelbrid possessed, but they had obviously seen right through Menderash's morph. And that couldn't result in anything good. Obviously, Marco had been thinking the same thing.  
We've stepped in a big pile of horse crap now, he said. This isn't good.  
The Kelbrid moved closer jerkily on its bird feet.  
Tobias? Can you hear all this? I asked.  
Oh, yeah definitely, he replied, although his 'voice' was a lot more fainter. Doesn't look good for old Menderash, does it?  
Tobias, I think a fight's gonna start, I explained. Land and morph into something dangerous in case the Kelbrid attack.  
Will do, Jake.  
The general inside me was rising up again. If a battle raged, I would, and easily could, command my troops even while I was attacked the enemy myself. I hadn't done it in a while, but it was still there, buried beneath the grief, and now, with the threat of imminent battle, it was burrowing its way up to the surface.  
The Kelbrid came extremely close to Menderash and stuck its ugly, tubular face into Menderash's. I raised my paw, ready to swing the Kelbrid aside if things turned nasty. I saw Marco clenching his fist. Up in the sky, Tobias had disappeared. He was following my orders and morphing into something more dangerous.  
Not so tough in a human body, are we? the Kelbrid sneered. He raised all four of his arms, and used them to push against Menderash's chest. He tripped over backwards, and fell awkwardly on the needle grass.  
But then the Kelbrid's head was suddenly grabbed by the great hairy arms of a gorilla and placed into a headlock.  
I don't think so, mate, Marco growled, as Menderash picked himself up.  
Neither do I. Mate. the Kelbrid said. It swung its clubbed tail around. It connected with Marco's chest and sent him flying backwards. I was stunned. No one tosses a gorilla and I mean no one. Ok, time to fight.  
The tiger inside me wanted to leap, so I did. I leaped through the air. The Kelbrid, celebrating his triumph over Marco, didn't see me coming. I landed on his back and dug my claws in, hoping to drag the thing to the ground.  
'Ketyhg!' the Kelbrid cried in pain.  
I hoped to drag him downwards...but failed. The strong bird legs kept the Kelbrid up, even with the extra three hundred kilograms that had just been deposited on its back. Still... I was caused the creature to run around wildly like some small dinosaur that had just been freaked out. I sank my fangs into the Kelbrid's neck, and instantly felt the movement beginning to slow. The Kelbrid visibly sagged. Its legs gave way as some strange silver blood pumped out of the wounds in its neck.  
'Hrkjuy fgrt!' the Kelbrid shouted. 'Hrkjuy fgrt!'  
Instantly, the other Kelbrids, which had remained statue-still while all this had been going on, swarmed forward in a single flurry of feathers. I leaped off the dead Kelbrid just as the first wave arrived.  
TSEEEEEEW! TSEEEEEEW!  
Beyond my range of vision, from the tree line, I saw Dracon beams. So. Santorelli and Jeanne were following my orders, at least. Their aim was slightly off, but that didn't matter. They'd get used to it. A couple of Kelbrid dropped, burning holes in their chests.  
I sprang into the air, connected with a Kelbrid, and went down with him, a small army rushing after us as we rolled. But Marco, who was down, but nowhere near dead, had been forgotten. I saw his brutish arm reach up and grabbed some of their chicken legs as they bobbed past, swinging them to the floor. There, they stayed.  
Rolling with the Kelbrid, I dug deep claws into my enemy's chest, but instantly felt severe pain in my leg. Looking down, I realised the Kelbrid had managed to grab my leg with its claw and was now tightening its grip. I grabbed its face in my mouth and shook violently until the body went limp. The vice-grip slackened and I dodged nimbly away as another Kelbrid aimed to jump on me.  
Menderash was up with his Dracon beam, frying any Kelbrid that strayed too close to his frail human body. From the trees, Santorelli and Jeanne helped with the fighting. It seemed like we were gaining the upperhand, but then an entire new swarm emerged from the big, lego-block building.  
Marco scrambled to his feet, still firmly grasping the Dracon beam and began firing away at the new wave of Kelbrid. Menderash joined him. The air was scorching within seconds. I saw Kelbrid after Kelbrid simply fall over as Dracon beams sizzled holes through them. A few simply looked horrified and disintegrated. But still, a few got past the beams and threw themselves at us. Three Kelbrid lunged at me, four leaped at Marco, and another two began chasing Menderash down.  
I felt a lobster-like claw grabbing onto my leg, a tail repeatedly bashing me in the side and needle sharp teeth digging into my tail. I could feel my own tiger blood coursing through my veins. I could feel his power ebbing slowly away. But the one thing the tiger had lost none of: courage. I leaped again, dragging a Kelbrid with me. I landed squarely on the back of another Kelbrid and finally, its legs gave way. It might be able to carry the weight of a tiger, and another Kelbrid, but not both at the same time. Its legs buckled, and snapped. Again, I leaped away, only to land on the back of another one.  
TSEEEEEEW!  
The air was filled with Dracon beams. I saw Marco rolling away from a horde of incoming Kelbrid, and firing at their legs. I saw Menderash, face grim, blasting away at any Kelbrid he saw. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Santorelli and Jeanne, crouching down in the bushes, but aiding us as they fired over and over again.  
We were winning. We had to be. The Kelbrid were fleeing. Most were running back towards the bizarre settlement. The few who remained behind we either sizzled by Dracon beam, punched into oblivion by Marco or clawed to death by my tiger morph. Panting, I stared around at the scene of destruction. At least two dozen Kelbrid bodies lay unconscious, or worse, on the ground.  
Swooooooooooosh!  
Jake... Marco murmured.  
That sounded like a ship, I told myself. It sounded like a ship's engines firing up. But I couldn't see a ship anywhere near here...  
That's when the 'lego' building decided to reveal its hidden door. The door simply swung open and out of the opening shot a black, garage-sized ship. Not much bigger than a Bug Fighter and certainly smaller than The Rachel but still, with weapons on either side and an engine that could probably take the ship thousands of miles per hour, it was more than we could handle.  
The ship, almost oval in shape with two cylindrical engines at the back, hovered for a few seconds as the pilot inside gained control of the ship, then focused on us, two pitiful earth animals, and three cowering humans. We couldn't fight this. Marco fired, but the beams were mere pinpricks to the ship.  
Run! I ordered.  
No one argued. Exhausted, bloodied and drained, we bolted for the trees. 


	10. Essak 143

Chapter 9  
  
For six days I lived in that cramped escape pod with a foul, disgusting beast called The One and half a dead rotting human. Luckily, there was a miniature Yeerk Pool behind the seats. It was no bigger than a dinner plate and had enough room for four Yeerks at the most. Before entering the pool, I chained my host body to the seat and handcuffed her hands together so she wouldn't do anything stupid such as try and open the hatch. Still, I knew The One wouldn't allow any such thing to happen, but I tied her all the same. You don't really know what goes on in the mind of what seemed to me as an all-powerful being. He spoke little, just to direct me to our destination. He never slept, never drank, never ate. I, meanwhile, had to eat food capsules that I found under the seat. They resembled human tablets and were hard to swallow but they kept my host alive for six days. To avoid dying of thirst, I resorted to drinking small amounts of the pool every day.  
It was six long, arduous days with nothing to do apart from stare out of the window, but finally, we reached the planet. It was quite small, and lush, much unlike the homeworld, which was fairly large and barren. We didn't see the ship containing the Animorphs, but The One assured me they had already landed an hour ago. And I trusted The One's word. He seemed to know everything, after all. The One informed me of the planet. That it was inhabited by a species called the Kelbrid. A species that would one day belong to the Yeerk Empire. I didn't make me feel much better.  
Yeerk Empire! That was a laugh. The Yeerk Empire didn't exist anymore.  
We landed near a Kelbrid settlement, which, according to The One, had been the home of an Animorph Vs Kelbrid fight. Apparently, the Animorphs had won. Again, it didn't make me feel much better. I'd much rather the Kelbrid, or whatever they were, have won. But then again, I argued with myself, I wouldn't have had the pleasure of killing Jake Berenson myself.  
'I am going to have a talk with the Kelbrid leader,' The One said as the small escape pod touched down next to strange, upside down cone-like buildings. 'You stay here and replenish your energy. Spend a hour or so in the Yeerk pool. I'll be beck soon.'  
I didn't argue. Why argue with the creature that can totally obliterate you simply by blinking? The One opened the hatch and stepped out. Instantly, the human that The One had taken the image of shimmered and was instantly replaced by the image of the Animorph Andalite. Aximili, if my memory served correct.  
He swaggered away on stolen Andalite legs. Andalite legs that I would surely have like to break. One day, maybe, but not yet.  
My three days were nearly up. I needed food. I tied my host body to the chair and fastened her hands together. I gagged her as well. No need for her to attract unwanted, alien attention. I lowered my head towards the pool. I looked through human eyes at it. I could see the small, grey ripples on the surface. I could see. For the next hour, I wouldn't be able to see anything. I would be in my natural Yeerk state, blind.  
I wriggled through the trenches and crevices of the host's brain. I could feel her eyes widen at the chance of being free for an hour. An hour of freedom where she would try with all her might to escape. Now that she was on a planet, and not in the dead of space and being watched over by The One, she would try harder. But she would not succeed.  
Leaving the last few brain neurons behind, I entered the ear canal and 'swam' down it towards the exit. I was now blind, although I knew the human was trying desperately with all her might to escape from her bondage. I was now deaf but I knew she was struggling to scream through her gag. But both things, she could not.  
I dropped down into the pool and there, I echo-located. I felt the familiar confines of the tiny Yeerk pool. I was alone there. My palps would not be answered by another Yeerk. It didn't matter. Yeerks don't communicate much in the pool. But then again, it felt extremely strange being on my own. Back on the Blade ship, there had usually been one or two other Yeerks in the pool, with whom I could talk to and see what was going on 'behind the scenes'.  
In the pool, I felt utterly defenceless. In words, I was a slug. I could easily be plucked from the pool and squashed underfoot. Before, I hadn't worried. We had been in space, no one was going to get us there, and besides, The One had been around and wouldn't have let anything happen to me. After all, he needed me, didn't he? Didn't he? He wouldn't let me die, would he?  
I felt defenceless, yes, but also at home. Not quite as homely as the pool on the homeworld where I had been born by tripartite parents. That was heaven. We would swim in the pool, basking under the Kandrona sun, until Gedd-Controllers would force other Gedds towards the pool. There, my palps would extend and my echolocation would reveal a head being thrust into the water. I was always the one to notice it first and the first to start swimming towards it. After that, it was easy. I'd squirm back into the head, into the small crevices of the small Gedd brain while the host body screamed incoherently. However, the Gedd was hard to subdue. I crushed its mind easily underfoot.  
While soaking up fake Kandrona rays from the roof of the escape pod, I remembered the good old days back on the home planet. I had been born at a time when my fellow Yeerks were infesting Gedds by the thousands. Beforehand, only members of the Council of Thirteen and a few select others would inhabit Gedd bodies and roam the surface. The rest would have to make do with small animals that came down to the pool to drink and it would be a race to see if anyone could enter the animal's ear before it loped off. It was hard work. For one, the most common drinker to approach the pool was an unnamed, headless critter, which we could not enter. There were no ear canals and its brain was situated somewhere in its legs or something.  
But then, a few months after I was born, an old, wise Yeerk brought an elderly Gedd to the pool. A friend of mine entered and came back a few minutes later, telling me they were mass-collecting Gedds from all over the planet so everyone could have a suitable host. I was one of the first to have a host body. Unlike many of the others, I had a strong, healthy male Gedd. That was my first real host. The Gedds were monkey-like, I guess, barely self-aware with limbs that weren't the same length. How they had evolved with different-sized limbs, I will never know, but it took getting used to. I kept falling over the shorter limb before I got walking perfect.  
I inhabited at least fifty Gedd host bodies at the time until the Andalites arrived. Prince Seerow, he was called. He felt sorry for us, and told us stories about other races, the stars...We listened intently and recorded all this information in the memory banks. But Prince Seerow made a mistake. He should have known we could not be contained. He should have known we would rebel and flee into the galaxy. He should have realised we would become the masters of the Universe.  
As we proved. We escaped the home world with four Andalite fighters, and two transports, which contained a quarter of a million Yeerks. We blew out of there, escaped in Z-Space and looked for our first victims. First came the Nahara, a strange, backward race. There were only a few of them, but they were oblivious, perfect for infestation. During only half a year, our forces split up. One half stayed near the Nahara planet, slowly infiltrating, the other half flew to another, nearby planet.  
We infested every single Nahara on that planet. It was my second host and it turns out Nahara have much better eyesight than the dim eyes of the Gedd, wonderful hearing and actually had a culture. They also had languages, unlike the grunting noises Gedds made. This new host was everything the Gedd wasn't. But my pleasure was short-lived. After only a month of inhabiting the Nahara, they all began to die. Suddenly, without warning. Most of us escaped the Nahara brains before they died, but some weren't as lucky. It turns out a race which had earlier visited the planet had accidentally spread a disease to the Nahara, which was why there were so few when we arrived. They dropped like flies. I think a few survived—those who were immune to the infection, I don't know, because we left the planet without a look back. Few Yeerks talk about that experience. It wasn't a loss as such, but it certainly wasn't a victory.  
We had few victories over the next two years as well. The other half of the fleet encountered another planet with more host bodies to infest. This proved more successful and most of the race was captured and infested. A few escaped into the confines of Zero-Space. They were called the Ssstram, or something, but the problem was, like the Nahara, they were few in number so only select Yeerks were able to infest them. I was not among them. The victory over the Ssstram boosted everyone's confidence. We tried to infest some Hawjabran, but it turns out they have some weird bodily systems. The brain was spread around the body in nodes, and not centralised like any sensible creature. We could not infest them, so we flushed them. It's what they deserved. We grabbed a few Ongachic individuals, but the Ongachic were—and still are, i guess—nomads, roaming through space, hardly ever landing on their home planet. We could never hunt them all down.  
But then, rising up through the mist of failure, came the Hork-Bajir planet. Probably our biggest victory. We slowly infiltrated, then unleashed everything we had to get the Hork-Bajir. We infested hundreds, then thousands of Hork-Bajir from different valleys around the planet. It was around this time that we started using our own things, not relying on stolen Andalite technology. We modified the Shredders, and created our own Dracon beams. We built our own ships, Bug Fighters, which were mass- produced, and a few Blade ships, made purposely for powerful Vissers. The mother ship and pool ship were made later, as well as modified transports, and other strange varieties. I had a Hork-Bajir host that was lost during a battle. I only just survived. The Andalite fleet came but it made no difference. They could not stop us. We had over forty-thousand Hork-Bajir host bodies with maybe a few in hiding and a small rebellious group led by an Andalite female concentrated in one valley.  
The Andalites realised the planet was lost and released a Quantum Virus. Too late. We took every host we had and left the planet. I know a few Hork-Bajir remained on the surface, and even survived the virus, so we came back down a few months later to quickly sweep the table. We had actually won a battle against the 'mighty Andalites'.  
After that, we took the Taxxon world. Luckily, almost every Taxxon co- operated and became voluntary-Controllers. Only because we offered them food for their never ending hunger. We crushed the rebellious 'mountain Taxxons' and sent the remnants of their little group scuttling off into space.  
Those were the glorious days of the Yeerk Empire, when the Andalites started to fear us. It was a good feeling.  
On the Taxxon planet, we saw two creatures, which we later found out were called humans. Some poor, neglected Yeerk spent many years trying to find the planet earth. In those years, we simply strengthened our forces. We slowly started infiltrating the Andalite planet, not to infest them...no, they were still too strong...but to learn secrets about their technology. We invaded the Leeran home world, which we later lost to the foul Andalites, who were working with the Animorphs. Other hosts turned out to be unsuitable or too few in number. But humans...they were suitable, and there were billions of them. If we had added the human race to our collection, we would have been unstoppable throughout the galaxy...  
I stopped dreaming. A head had been thrust into the water of the small pool. Actually, the entire head wouldn't fit. It was just the right ear that had been pushed in. I was confused. Had The One returned to help me get back into my host body? Otherwise, there was no way the human would voluntary put her ear in the water so I could re-enter. She had fought me all her life. She wouldn't start liking me now.  
Anyway, I wasn't complaining. I swam for the ear. Two protrusions extended around until I targeted the opening. Then I started to slither inside, flattening myself out so I would fit. I shot out a toxin that would deaden the pain as I wriggled through the ear canal, as flat as paper. I stretched, pushing muscle and bone aside with strength a poor pathetic creature like myself should not have. I was absurdly flat and pushing deeper, until I felt the electricity of the brain inching closer.  
Ah, there it was!  
I felt microvolts firing around as I stretched, paper-thin into the brain. I pressed into a crevice, aiming to gain control of this part of the brain. I moved closer and I felt the brain neurons connecting to me. Making me not just a poor, defenceless slug, but also a much larger being capable of defending herself. I touched the brain's centre of seeing.  
Ahhhhhh! To see again. It really was the best thing in the world. You have no idea what it is like being blind all your life and suddenly seeing things. I could see objects that before I could only touch or smell or 'see' on sonar, which is nothing like proper vision. But when you first enter a host and you look out of its eyes, it completely overwhelms you. Nothing can prepare you for it, nothing can describe it. You might have thought that having so many hosts, each with good vision, I might have got used to it. No, no one can get used to being blind and deaf one minute, and being able to see and hear the next.  
I wrapped myself around the human's brain. I got control of her every body part. I untied the ropes that held me to the chair and pulled the gag off. The girl was back to screaming at me violently. She swore and tried to resist. She failed. She could not rebel. Not while I was in control.  
I sat up, trying to find out who had shoved the human's ear underwater for me to enter. I got a surprise. There, sitting next to me was another human. A male, strong-looking, a few years older than my host body.  
'Hello, Essak 143,' the man said.  
He smiled. And at precisely that moment, my heart stopped beating. See, I'd seen that smile before. Maybe not on this human-Controller (for that's surely what he was), but on another one. See, sometimes, when a Yeerk changes host body, it sometimes carries over trademarks. And this slow, yet equally sadistic, smile was definitely a smile I'd seen before, and I wasn't happy about this fact.  
No way. There was possible explanation to explain it.  
'You!' I accused. 


	11. Tobias

Chapter 10  
  
I don't know how, but I'd lost the others. When Jake had told me to morph something more dangerous, I landed in the alien forest and instantly morphed Hork-Bajir. The Hork-Bajir knew how to move through woodland. Blades situated perfectly all over the body would cut vines and strip shrubs even before they got in my way. Still, I had made a mistake landing too deep into the forest. Morphing took up time and rushing through the undergrowth took up even more time. Insects as big as my Hork-Bajir head reared up as I ran past. Birds took flight in terror. Mammals of strange shapes moved out of the path I was making through the forest. I was making so much noise crashing through the vegetation I was surprised the Kelbrid's didn't hear me coming. I mean, let's face it, Hork-Bajir might be made for fighting, but they aren't going to be the next James Bond.  
I emerged into the clearing to find it deserted. The buildings were still there obviously, but there was no sign of life anywhere. Dead Kelbrid bodies lay strewn on the floor, some with body parts missing. Ok, that was good. That meant my friends had put up a good fight, but there were so many Kelbrid...I doubted that they could have held them all off. But, looking around again, I saw no other, living Kelbrids. That was a good sign too. Maybe, after defeating them all, Jake and the others retreated into the forest, thinking there were more on the way.  
I stepped over a dead Kelbrid with puncture wounds in its neck and headed back towards the forest when something caught my eye. A trail of footprints in the soft dirt just before the forest began. I moved closer, my heart pounding, dreading what footprints they could have been. But, looking closer, I realised they were the big footprints of a gorilla and the footprints of a tiger. The tiger's footprints had blood trailing of them.  
I looked to where the footprints led. There was some sort of trail in the forest as if some large, jungle animal had barged its way through without hesitation. My friends had obviously fled into the forest, with at least Jake injured, probably Marco and the others too. Something had caused them to run. What was it? Another wave of Kelbrid that they couldn't hold off? Something else?  
Think Tobias, think, I scolded myself. You're the predator here!  
No, it couldn't have been the Kelbrids, I told myself. There would have been Kelbrid footprints leading off into the forest after my friends, and I couldn't see any. So what was it that had spooked my fellow Animorphs?  
I started walking into the forest. Movement would be easier now, since a trail had already been created for me. I wouldn't have to stop slightly to destroy a log in my path or a tangle of vines.  
I had gone no more than two hundred metres, when I heard something.  
'Tobias...' it choked.  
A human. Male. Was it one of us? Jake, Marco? Santorelli, Menderash? I looked desperately around, being careful with my tail as I swung in a circle, looking for the source of the noise.  
Who is it? I called out. Where are you?  
'Tobias...over here!' the voice said, more loudly as if the person was gaining enough strength to shout.  
I saw movement perhaps ten metres off the trail and rushed towards it. It was Menderash, his clothes torn and a nasty gash on the back of his right leg.  
'Menderash, what are you doing here?' I asked, speaking normally. 'Where are the others?'  
Menderash looked up at my fierce Hork-Bajir face and swallowed. 'We were fighting the Kelbrid,' he replied, starting slowly, but picking up speed. 'We were winning, but then a ship appeared from one of the buildings and tried to hunt us down. We ran into the forest. The ship shot at us, missed, but the ground exploded and shrapnel went flying into my leg. I can walk but only just. Jake said they couldn't wait for me and told me to wait in the forest until you came. He said you'd probably be in your Hork-Bajir morph. The others ran off deeper into the forest.'  
I took a deep breath. Things weren't going too well. Here we were, separated. Me, in Hork-Bajir morph, Menderash, a nothlit was injured. The other group was being hunted by a ship that was thousands of times faster than they were. The trees would provide them with some shelter, but sooner or later, they'd become too tired to run any further and the ship would easily finish them off. They were probably already dead.  
No, don't think about that, I told myself. They could be alive, trying to find a way of destroying the ship.  
Fat chance, I argued.  
They could be. We–Menderash and I—should find a way of helping them, I told myself. We can...erm...  
'Menderash, are there any ships back at the Kelbrid base?' I asked. 'If so, will you be able to fly one?'  
'Of course,' Menderash said weakly, forcing a smile. 'The ships may be strange and difficult to control, and I may have damaged my leg, but I am an Andalite pilot inside, and I have yet to meet a ship I cannot fly.'  
It was a good speech for a wounded man. 'Ok, then, let's go,' I said, feeling like Jake did whenever he would give out an order. People might not think his orders were the best, but nobody questioned them. They followed them and if things went wrong, Jake would muse over it, thinking he was a bad leader. When, of course, he wasn't. Out of all the original Animorphs, I still would have picked Jake as the leader, even if I knew he would order Rachel to her death beforehand. Nobody could have got this far without Jake. He was the one who held us together. Sure, we'd lost Rachel, we'd lost Ax. Cassie was still on earth, but without Jake, we'd all be dead by now.  
'You'll have to carry me,' Menderash said. 'I can walk, but only slowly and we need to get there as fast as possible.'  
I nodded my Hork-Bajir head. I carefully lifted Menderash up and hoisted him over my shoulders, making sure I didn't hurt him with any of my blades. I think I nicked him with an elbow blade as I shoved him up. I saw blood dripping down onto my arm. Menderash didn't complain.  
With Menderash safely secure on my shoulders, I ran back the way we came, barrelling through undergrowth and pushing through low-hanging vines. I skidded into the clearing and glanced around. 'Where are the ships?' I asked.  
I saw Menderash point to a large building with the door swung open. Yet from the angle I was at, I couldn't see what was inside the building. I moved towards it, when, from the sky, came a flash of light.  
'Is that the ship that chased you?' I asked, pointing up at the sky, where the flash moved rapidly above us. It didn't seem too low down. In fact, it seemed like it was way up in the atmosphere. It was coming closer, no mistaking that for anything else.  
Menderash looked up and over my shoulder, saw him frown. 'No, that can't be,' he answered, looking slightly confused. 'That ship looks like it has just entered the planet's atmosphere and is looking for somewhere to land. Plus it is much smaller than the ship that pursued us. It looks no bigger than a car.'  
'Whatever it is, it's getting closer,' I interrupted, leaping forward towards the large building, my Hork-Bajir hearts hammering away in my chest. 'Let's get outta here!'  
I've seen so many ships. But, the one image that sticks in my mind is the ship that crashed landed in the construction site that fateful night many years ago. I saw it coming closer, until it was directly above it. That ship changed our lives forever. Now, I knew this ship obviously couldn't change my life, but still, deep down, it scared me. Who knew what was on that ship? Who knew what danger, or warning, it would give us?  
I raced into the building, Menderash bouncing on my shoulder behind me. The room was large and dark. The part that we walked into was like some sort of platform that was raised six metres above the floor of the building, which was obviously in the 'basement'. The platform went all around the room with walkways stretching across the openings. I saw three areas where ships would be cradled. Two areas were empty. The other was occupied by a strange, bus-sized, pickaxe-shaped ship. The bridge was obviously the 'axe' part, the 'handle' stretched down below the platform and probably contained the engines and weapons. I started to run across a rickety walkway towards it, but Menderash's call stopped me dead.  
'Check the ship out first,' he said suddenly. 'Leave me here for a few seconds, and look around the ship to make sure its empty. There could be Kelbrid doing maintenance inside. Your Hork-Bajir morph should be strong enough to deal with any problems.'  
'I can't leave you here on your own,' I protested.  
See, this is the difference between orders from your 'prince' and orders from fellow subordinates. If my prince had ordered me to leave him there, I would have done. No protesting. No arguments. But this person, this Andalite-nothlit was not my prince, he was a person I had known for a year and shared a small, cramped ship with. If Menderash told me to abandon him, there was no way I would listen to that order.  
'Leave me and search the ship,' Menderash repeated. 'You'll be dragged down if you have to battle a Kelbrid. You might lose.'  
'You might die if I leave you out here,' I protested.  
'We might both die if we both go in there,' Menderash argued. 'Which would you prefer?'  
Yeah, Ok, Menderash did have a point. I didn't want both of us to die. 'Stay here and don't move,' I instructed. 'I'll be right back.'  
I moved as quietly as my Hork-Bajir body could towards the ship. It seemed too ungainly to be able to move fast, but it was so thin, beams had little chance of actually hitting it. It wouldn't be a bad ship to fly, I decided. The door from the walkway into the ship was open. Not a good sign. That meant someone was already inside, someone had been inside but had left for a tea-break or something or the third option, someone had been inside, but had been scared out.  
I poked my head into the doorway. No one seemed to be about. There was no movement, I could hear anything and I couldn't smell anything. I stepped cautiously inside. I was in a tiny room with two doors. One door undoubtedly led into the bridge. The other door was open, revealing a dropshaft, a kind of floorless lift used for getting from one floor to another. I stepped fully into the room, when it happened...  
The door that I had just walked into slammed shut, narrowly missing my tail. I spun around, my tail blade gouging the wall as I did so. 'What the...?'  
Who had shut the door? There had been nobody outside to shut the door, apart from Menderash...Menderash! Was he Ok? My puzzlement quickly transformed into terror, but not terror for me, mostly for Menderash outside. My hearts started beating again and I noticed some sort of chemical was being pumped around my body, gearing me for action. A bit with human adrenaline, only for Hork-Bajir.  
I had to get to the bridge. There was a large window there that I could look out of. I pushed open the door and emerged into a large, open room. There were little consoles and computers and no seats. I mean, do you expect overgrown chickens to sit down? I rushed over to the window and looked out. My scared Hork-Bajir expression instantly turned back to confusion as I saw Menderash standing calmly on the platform. I could see nobody else.  
'Menderash, what's going on?' I asked loudly.  
There was no reply. I practically slapped my forehead. 'Of course he can't reply, he can't hear you,' I told myself out loud.  
Menderash, what's going on? I repeated, this time in thought-speak.  
He looked towards me with a strange expression. It wasn't an expression I had seen on his face before. Andalites in human morph don't use a variety of expressions. But this was certainly an expression, and not a comforting one as well. It was an expression of cruelty and malevolence.  
What's going on? he asked innocently. Why, you've just walked into a trap, Animorph. Don't you recognise a human-Controller when you see one?  
I jerked backwards. What was he talking about...? Menderash wasn't a controller. How could he be?  
You're a controller? I choked out, feeling my Hork-Bajir throat clogging up with a variety of emotions.  
Very clever, you're catching on.  
Ok, this was strange. Menderash couldn't have been a controller on the trip. Yeerks need to visit the Yeerk pool every three days to soak up Kandrona rays and he simply couldn't have done that on the journey. For one, there wasn't a Yeerk pool there for him to enter and for two, we'd have noticed and starved the Yeerk out of him. Something about this situation didn't make sense.  
Since when have you been a controller? I asked casually, pretending I wasn't affected by any of this and that I could easily get myself out of this mess if I wanted to.  
Since Jake left me in the forest, was the reply. If Jake hadn't told my host body to wait behind, we wouldn't have found him and we wouldn't have made him a controller. It's all Jake's fault, isn't it?  
So. It all bubbled down to Jake. Again. Everything seemed to be his fault lately. The death of Rachel. The death of Tom. Our near-death experience with the Blade ship. The capture of Menderash....All Jake's fault.  
I felt rage boiling up inside me. I could feel anger towards Jake, towards my 'prince'....It wasn't nice. No one wants to be angry at their leader. Even if he did make too many mistakes and leave people for dead in an alien forest.  
I've got to go now, but I'll leave you in the presence of my leader, Menderash said, cutting short my rage. Unlike your leader, he doesn't make mistakes.  
Menderash turned and left the building as something shimmered and began to materialise out of middair. It was like those really hot days where you see hot air rising from concrete and cars. It was like that. Except, something was forming out of those shimmers. I saw dainty, blue legs ending in hooves. I saw a wicked, scorpion tail. I saw weak, many-fingered hands. And I saw those stalk-eyes that swivelled in every direction.  
My friend, Aximili. Except there was a mouth rimmed in ugly, red teeth were there should not have been. This was no longer my friend. This was something with much, much more malice and cruelty than my friend Ax could ever have possessed. This was something much more evil.  
The One! 


End file.
